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LOUISIANA 


BOOKS BY FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT 

Published BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


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Ask your sister/’ she replied. “It was her plan. 





Louisiana 


BY 

FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT 

M 

AUTHOR OF “ Haworth’s’* **that lass o* lowrik’s,’* etc. 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER^S SONS 

1915 



Copyright by 

FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT, 

i88o. 

(All rights reserved.) 






CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. 

PAGB 

Louisiana, • • i 

CHAPTER II. 

Worth, * . i6 

CHAPTER HI. 

•‘He is Different,” *27 

CHAPTER IV. 

A New Type, 35 


CHAPTER V. 

•*I Have Hurt You,” 41 

CHAPTER VL 

The Road to the Right, 51 


VI 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER VII. 

PAGB 

“ She Aint Yere,” .58 

CHAPTER VIII. 

•‘Nothing has Hurt You,” ..... 76 

CHAPTER IX. 

“Don’t Ye, Louisianny?” .85 


CHAPTER X. 

The Great World, 91 

CHAPTER XL 

A Rusty Nail, 98 

CHAPTER XII. 

“ Mebbe,” . 103 

CHAPTER XIII. 

A New Plan, .112 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Confessions, . • 12 1 

CHAPTER XV. 

•‘IanthyI” 133 


CONTENTS. vii 

CHAPTER XVI. 

PAGE 

“ Don’t do no one a Onjestice,” . . . • 140 

CHAPTER XVH. 

A Leaf, .145 

CHAPTER XVHI. 

“He Knew that I Loved You,” • • • • 157 



LOUISIANA 


CHAPTER I. 

LOUISIANA. 

Olivia Ferrol leaned back in her chair, her 
hands folded upon her lap. People passed and 
repassed her as they promenaded the long gal- 
lery,” as it was called ; they passed in couples, in 
trios ; they talked with unnecessary loudness, 
they laughed at their own and each other's jokes ; 
they flirted, they sentimentalized, they criticised 
each other, but none of them showed any special 
interest in Olivia Ferrol, nor did Miss Ferrol, on 
her part, show much interest in them. 

She had been at Oakvale Springs for two weeks. 
She was alone, out of her element, and knew no- 
body. The fact that she was a New Yorker, and 
had never before been so far South, was rather 
against her. On her arrival she had been glanced 
over and commented upon with candor. 


2 


LOUISIANA. 


She is a Yankee,’* said the pretty and re 
markably youthful-looking mother of an apparent- 
ly grown-up family from New Orleans. ‘‘You 
can see it.” 

And though the remark was not meant to be 
exactly severe, Olivia felt that it was very severe, 
indeed, under existing circumstances. She heard 
it as she was giving her orders for breakfast to 
her own particular jet-black and highly excitable 
waiter, and she felt guilty at once and blushed, 
hastily taking a sip of ice- water to conceal her 
confusion. When she went upstairs afterward she 
wrote a very interesting letter to her brother in 
New York, and tried to make an analysis ot her 
sentiments for his edification. 

“You advised me to come here because it 
would be novel as well as beneficial,” she wrote. 
“ And it certainly is novel. I think I feel like a 
Pariah — a little. I am aware that even the best 
bred and most intelligent of them, hearing that I 
have always lived in New York, will privately re- 
gret it if they like me and remember it if they 
dislike me. Good-natured and warm-hearted as 
they seem among themselves, I am sure it will be 
I who will have to make the advances — if ad- 
vances are made — and I must be very amiable, 
indeed, if I intend that they shall like me. 


LOUISIANA. 


3 


But she had not been well enough at first to be 
in the humor to make the advances, and conse- 
quently had not found her position an exciting 
one. She had looked on until she had been able 
to rouse herself to some pretty active likes and 
dislikes, but she knew no one. 

She felt this afternoon as if this mild recreation 
of looking on had begun rather to pall upon her, 
and she drew out her watch, glancing at it with a 
little yawn. 

It is five o^clock,’' she said. Very soon the 
band will make its appearance, and it will bray 
until the stages come in. Yes, there it is ! 

The musical combination to which she referred 
was composed of six or seven gentlemen of color 
who played upon brazen instruments, each in dif- 
ferent keys and different time. Three times a 
day they collected on a rustic kiosk upon the lawn 
and played divers popular airs with an intensity, 
fervor, and muscular power worthy of a better 
cause. They straggled up as she spoke, took their 
places and began, and before they had played 
many minutes the most exciting event of the day 
occurred, as it always did somewhere about this 
hour. In the midst of the gem of their collection 
was heard the rattle of wheels and the crack of 
whips, and through the rapturous shouts of the 


4 


LOUISIANA. 


juvenile guests, the two venerable, rickety stages 
dashed up with a lumbering flourish, and a spas- 
modic pretense of excitement, calculated to de- 
ceive only the feeblest mind. 

At the end of the gallery they checked them- 
selves in their mad career, the drivers making 
strenuous efforts to restrain the impetuosity of the 
four steeds whose harness rattled against their 
ribs with an unpleasant bony sound. Half a 
dozen waiters rushed forward, the doors were 
flung open, the steps let down with a bang, the 
band brayed insanely, and the passengers alighted. 
— One, two, three, four,’' counted Olivia Ferrol, 
mechanically, as the first vehicle unburdened it- 
self. And then, as the door of the second was 
opened : ** One — only one : and a very young 
one, too. Dear me ! Poor girl ! ” 

This exclamation might naturally have fallen 
from any quick-sighted and sympathetic person. 
The solitary passenger of the second stage stood 
among the crowd, hesitating, and plainly over- 
whelmed with timorousness. Three waiters were 
wrestling with an ugly shawl, a dreadful shining 
valise, and a painted wooden trunk, such as is 
seen in country stores. In their enthusiastic de- 
sire to dispose creditably of these articles they 
temporarily forgot the owner, who, after one des- 


LOUISIANA. 


S 


perate, timid glance at them, looked round her in 
vain for succor. She was very pretty and very 
young and very ill-dressed — her costume a bucolic 
travesty on prevailing modes. She did not know 
where to go, and no one thought of showing her ; 
the loungers about the office stared at her ; she 
began to turn pale with embarrassment and timid- 
ity. Olivia Ferrol left her chair and crossed the 
gallery. She spoke to a servant a little sharply : 

Why not show the young lady into the par- 
lor ? ’’ she said. 

The girl heard, and looked at her helplessly, 
but with gratitude. The waiter darted forward 
with hospitable rapture. 

'^Dis yeah’s de way, miss,’’ he said, ‘‘right 
inter de ’ception-room. Foller me, ma’am/* 

Olivia returned to her seat. People were re- 
garding her with curiosity, but she was entirely 
oblivious of the fact. 

“That is one of them,” she was saying, men- 
tally. “ That is one of them, and a very interest- 
ing type it is, too.” 

To render the peculiarities of this young wo- 
man clearer, it may be well to reveal here some- 
thing of her past life and surroundings. Her 
father had been a literary man, her mother an il- 
lustrator of books and magazine articles. From 


o 


LOUISIANA. 


her earliest childhood she had been surrounded 
by men and women of artistic or literary occupa- 
tions, some who were drudges, some who were 
geniuses, some who balanced between the two 
extremes, and she had unconsciously learned the 
tricks of the trade. She had been used to people 
who continually had their eyes open to anything 
peculiar and interesting in human nature, who 
were enraptured by the discovery of new types oi 
men, women, and emotions. Since she had been 
left an orphan she had lived with her brother, 
who had been reporter, editor, contributor, critic, 
one after the other, until at last he had estab- 
lished a very enviable reputation as a brilliant, 
practical young fellow, who knew his business, 
and had a fine career open to him. So it was 
natural that, having become interested in the gen- 
eral friendly fashion of dissecting and studying 
every scrap of human nature within reach, she 
had followed more illustrious examples, and had 
become very critical upon the subject of ** types 
herself. During her sojourn at Oakvale she had 
studied the North Carolinian mountaineer type 
with the enthusiasm of an amateur. She had 
talked to the women in sunbonnets who brought 
fruit to the hotel, and sat on the steps and floor 
of the galleries awaiting the advent of customers 


LOUISIANA. 


7 


with a composure only to be equaled by the calm- 
ness of the noble savage ; she had walked and 
driven over the mountain roads, stopping at way- 
side houses and entering into conversation with 
the owners until she had become comparatively 
well known, even in the space of a fortnight, and 
she had taken notes for her brother until she had 
roused him to sharing her own interest in her dis- 
coveries. 

‘‘ I am sure you will find a great deal of mate* 
rial here,’’ she wrote to him. You see how I have 
fallen a victim to that dreadful habit of looking 
at everything in the light of material. A man is 
no longer a man — he is ^ material ’ ; sorrow is not 
sorrow, joy is not joy — it is ^ material. * There is 
something rather ghoulish in it. I wonder if 
anatomists look at people’s bodies as we do at 
their minds, and if to them every one is a ‘ sub* 
ject.’ At present I am interested in a species of 
girl I have discovered. Sometimes she belongs 
to the better class — the farmers, who have a great 
deal of land and who are the rich men of the com- 
munity, — sometimes she lives in a log cabin with 
a mother who smokes and chews tobacco, but in 
either case she is a surprise and a mystery. She 
is always pretty, she is occasionally beautiful, and 
in spite of her house, her people, her education or 


8 


LOUISIANA. 


want of it, she is instinctively a refined and deli- 
cately susceptible young person. She has always 
been to some common school, where she has writ- 
ten compositions on sentimental or touching sub- 
jects, and when she belongs to the better class she 
takes a fashion magazine and tries to make her 
dresses like those of the ladies in the colored 
plates, and, I may add, frequently fails. I could 
write a volume about her, but I wont. When 
your vacation arrives, come and see for yourself.*’ 
It was of this class Miss Ferrol was thinking when 
she said : ‘‘ That is one of them, and a very inter- 
ing type it is, too.” 

When she went in to the dining-room to par- 
take of the six o’clock supper, she glanced about 
her in search of the new arrival, but she had not 
yet appeared. A few minutes later, however, she 
entered. She came in slowly, looking straight 
before her, and trying very hard to appear at 
ease. She was prettier than before, and worse 
dressed. She wore a blue, much-ruffled muslin 
and a wide collar made of imitation lace. She 
had tucked her sleeves up to her elbow with a 
band and bow of black velvet, and her round, 
smooth young arms were adorable. She looked 
for a vacant place, and, seeing none, stopped 
short, as if she did not know what to do. Then 


LOUISIANA. 


9 


some magnetic attraction drew her eye to Olivia 
Ferrol’s. After a moment's pause, she moved 
timidly toward her. 

I — I wish a waiter would come," she faltered. 

At that moment one on the wing stopped in 
obedience to a gesture of Miss Ferrol's — a deli- 
cate, authoritative movement of the head. 

‘‘ Give this young lady that chair opposite me/ 
she said. 

The chair was drawn out with a flourish, the 
girl was seated, and the bill of fare was placed in 
her hands. 

‘'Thank you," she said, in a low, astonished 
voice. 

Olivia smiled. 

“That waiter is my own special and peculiar 
property," she said, “ and I rather pride myself 
on him." 

But her guest scarcely seemed to comprehend 
her pleasantry. She looked somewhat awkward. 

“ I — don't know much about waiters," she 
ventured. “ I'm not used to them, and I sup- 
pose they know it. I never was at a hotel be- 
fore." 

“ You will soon get used to them," returned 
Miss Ferrol. 

The girl fixed her eyes upon her with a ques- 


10 


LOUISIANA. 


tioning appeal. They were the loveliest eyes she 
had ever seen, Miss Ferrol thought — large-irised, 
and with wonderful long lashes fringing them and 
curling upward, giving them a tender, very wide- 
open look. She seemed suddenly to gain cour- 
age, and also to feel it her duty to account for 
herself. 

** I shouldn’t have come here alone if I could 
have got father to come with me,” she revealed. 

But he wouldn’t come. He said it wasn’t the 
place for him. I haven’t been very well since 
mother died, and he thought I’d better try the 
Springs awhile. I don’t think I shall like it. ” 

‘‘ I don’t like it,” replied Miss Ferrol, candidly, 

but I dare say you will when you know people.” 

The girl glanced rapidly and furtively over the 
crowded room, and then her eyes fell. 

** I shall never know them,” she said, in a de- 
pressed undertone. 

In secret Miss Ferrol felt a conviction that she 
was right ; she had not been presented under the 
right auspices. 

It is rather clever and sensitive in her to find 
it out so quickly,” she thought. ** Some girls 
would be more sanguine, and be led into blun- 
ders.” 

They progressed pretty well during the meal. 


LOUISIANA. 


II 


When it was over, and Miss Ferrol rose, she be- 
came conscious that her companion was troubled 
by some new difficulty, and a second thought sug- 
gested to her what its nature was. 

‘‘Are you going to your room ? ” she asked. 

“ I don’t know,” said the girl, with the look of 
helpless appeal again. “ I don’t know where else 
to go. I don’t like to go out there ” (signifying 
the gallery) “ alone.” 

“ Why not come with me ? ” said Miss Ferrol. 
“ Then we can promenade together.” 

“ Ah ! ” she said, with a little gasp of relief and 
gratitude. “ Don’t you mind ? ” 

“ On the contrary, I shall be very glad of your 
society,” Miss Ferrol answered. “ I am alone, 
too.” 

So they went out together and wandered slowly 
from one end of the starlit gallery to the other, 
winding their way through the crowd that prom- 
enaded, and, upon the whole, finding it rather 
pleasant. 

“ I shall have to take care of her,” Miss Ferrol 
was deciding ; “ but I do not think I shall mind 
the trouble.” 

The thing that touched her most was the girl’s 
innocent trust in her sincerity — her taking for 
granted that this stranger, who had been polite to 


12 


LOUISIANA. 


her, had been so not for worldly good breeding’s 
sake, but from true friendliness and extreme gen- 
erosity of nature. Her first shyness conquered, 
she related her whole history with the unreserve 
of a child. Her father was a farmer, and she had 
always lived with him on his farm. He had been 
too fond of her to allow her to leave home, and 
she had never been “ away to school.” 

“ He has made a pet of me at home,” she said. 
“ I was the only one that lived to be over eight 
years old. I am the eleventh. Ten died before I 
was born, and it made father and mother worry a 
good deal over me— and father was worse than 
mother. He said the time never seemed to come 
when he could spare me. He is very good and kind 
— is father,” she added, in a hurried, soft-voiced 
way. “ He’s rough, but he’s very good and kind.” 

Before they parted for the night Miss Ferrol had 
the whole genealogical tree by heart. They were 
an amazingly prolific family, it seemed. There 
was Uncle Josiah, who had ten children. Uncle 
Leander, who had fifteen. Aunt Amanda, who 
had twelve, and Aunt Nervy, whose belongings 
comprised three sets of twins and an unlimited 
supply of odd numbers. They went upstairs to- 
gether and parted at Miss Ferrol’s door, their 
rooms being near each other. 


LOUISIANA. 


13 


The girl held out her hand. 

Good-night ! she said. so thankful 

Fve got to know you.” 

Her eyes looked bigger and wider-open than 
ever ; she smiled, showing her even, sound, little 
white teeth. Under the bright light of the lamp 
the freckles the day betrayed on her smooth skin 
were not to be seen. 

‘‘Dear me!” thought Miss Ferrol. “How 
startlingly pretty, in spite of the cotton lace and 
the dreadful polonaise 1 ” 

She touched her lightly on the shoulder. 

“ Why, you are as tall as I am 1 ” she said. 

Yes,” the girl replied, depressedly ; “ but Tm 
twice as broad.” 

“Oh no — no such thing.” And then, with a 
delicate glance down over her, she said — “ It is 
your dress that makes you fancy so. Perhaps 
your dressmaker does not understand your fig- 
ure,” — as if such a failing was the most natural 
and simple thing in the world, and needed only 
the slightest rectifying. 

“ I have no dressmaker,” the girl answered. 
“ I make my things myself. Perhaps that is it.” 

“It is a little dangerous, it is true,” replied 
Miss Ferrol. “ I have been bold enough to try 
it myself, and I never succeeded. I could give 


14 


LOUISIANA. 


you the address of a very thorough woman if you 
lived in New York/* 

But I don*t live there, you see. I wish I did. 
I never shall, though. Father could never spare 
me.** 

Another slight pause ensued, during which she 
looked admiringly at Miss Ferrol. Then she said 

good-night** again, and turned away. 

But before she had crossed the corridor she 
stopped. 

‘‘ I never told you my name,** she said. 

Miss Ferrol naturally expected she would an^ 
nounce it at once, but she did not. An air of 
embarrassment fell upon her. She seemed almost 
averse to speaking. 

‘'Well,** said Miss Ferrol, smiling, “what is 
it?** 

She did not raise her eyes from the carpet as 
she replied, unsteadily : 

“ It*s Louisiana.** 

Miss Ferrol answered her very composedly : 

“ The name of the state ? ** 

“ Yes. Father came from there.** 

“ But you did not tell me your surname.** 

“ Oh ! that is Rogers. You — you didn’t laugh. 
I thought you would.** 

“At the first name?** replied Miss FerroL 


LOUISIANA, IS 

Oh no. It is unusual — but names often are. 
And Louise is pretty.’’ 

So it is,” she said, brightening. I never 
thought of that. I hate Louisa. They will call 
it ‘ Lowizy,’ or * Lousy anny.’ I could sign my- 
self Louise, couldn’t I ? ” 

‘‘ Yes,” Miss Ferrol replied. 

And then her proUg^e said ‘ 'good-night” for 
the third time, and disappeared. 


CHAPTER IL 


WORTH. 

She presented herself at the bed-room doof 
with a timid knock the next morning before break- 
fast, evidently expecting to be taken charge of. 
Miss Ferrol felt sure she would appear, and had, 
indeed, dressed herself in momentary expectation 
of hearing the knock. 

When she heard it she opened the door at once. 

I am glad to see you/* she said. I thought 
you might come.** 

A slight expression of surprise showed itself in 
the girPs eyes. It had never occurred to her that 
she might not come. 

Oh, yes,** she replied. I never could go 
down alone when there was any one who would 
go with me.** 

There was something on her mind. Miss Ferrol 
fancied, and presently it burst forth in a confiden- 
tial inquiry. 


WORTH, 

Is this dress very short-waisted ? she asked, 
with great earnestness. 

Merciful delicacy stood in the way of Miss 
FerroFs telling her how short-waisted it was, and 
how it maltreated her beautiful young body. 

‘‘ It is rather short-waisted, it is true.'’ 

** Perhaps," the girl went on, with a touch of 
guileless melancholy, ‘‘ I am naturally this shape." 

Here, it must be confessed. Miss Ferrol forgot 
herself for the moment, and expressed her indig- 
nation with undue fervor. 

Perish the thought ! " she exclaimed. Why, 
child ! your figure is a hundred times better than 
mine." 

Louisiana wore for a moment a look of absolute 
fright. 

‘‘Oh, no!" she cried. “Oh, no. Your fig- 
ure is magnificent." 

“Magnificent!" echoed Miss Ferrol, giving 
way to her enthusiasm, and indulging in figures 
of speech. “ Don't you see that I am thin — ab- 
solutely thin. But my things fit me, and my 
dressmaker understands me. If you were dressed 
as I am," — pausing to look her over from head to 
foot— “ Ah ! " she exclaimed, pathetically, “ how 
I should like to see you in some of my clothes ! " 

A tender chord was touched. A gentle sad 


i8 


LOUISIANA, 


ness, aroused by this instance of wasted opportU' 
nities, rested upon her. But instantaneously she 
brightened, seemingly without any particular 
cause. A brilliant idea had occurred to her. 
But she did not reveal it. 

I will wait,’’ she thought, “ until she is more 
at her ease with me.” 

She really was more at her ease already. Just 
this one little scrap of conversation had done that. 
She became almost affectionate in a shy way be- 
fore they reached the dining-room. 

‘‘ I want to ask you something,” she said, as 
they neared the door. 

‘‘ What is it ? ” 

She held Miss Ferrol back with a light clasp on 
her arm. Her air was quite tragic in a small way. 

Please say ‘ Louise,’ when you speak to me,” 
she said. “Never say ‘ Miss Louisiana’ — never 
— never! ” 

“ No, I shall never say ‘ Miss Louisiana,’ ” her 
companion answered. “ How would you like 
‘ Miss Rogers ? ’ ” 

“ I would rather have ' Louise,’ ” she said, dis- 
appointedly. 

“Well,” returned Miss Ferrol, “‘Louise’ let 
it be.” 

And “Louise” it was thenceforward. If she 


WORTH. 


19 


had not been so pretty, so innocent, and so aftec^ 
donate and humble a young creature, she might 
have been troublesome at times (it occurred to 
Olivia Ferrol), she clung so pertinaciously to 
their chance acquaintanceship ; she was so help- 
less and desolate if left to herself, and so inordi- 
nately glad to be taken in hand again. She made 
no new friends, — which was perhaps natural 
enough, after all. She had nothing in common 
with the young women who played ten-pins and 
croquet and rode out in parties with their cav- 
aliers. She was not of them, and understood 
them as little as they understood her. She knew 
very well that they regarded her with scornful tol- 
erance when they were of the ill-natured class, 
and with ill-subdued wonder when they were 
amiable. She could not play ten-pins or croquet, 
nor could she dance. 

‘‘What are the men kneeling down for, and 
why do they keep stopping to put on those queer 
little caps and things ? ’’ she whispered to Miss 
Ferrol one night. 

“ They are trying to dance a German,'' replied 
Miss Ferrol, “ and the man who is leading them 
only knows one figure." 

As for the riding, she had been used to riding 
all her life ; but no one asked her to join them, 


20 


LOUISIANA, 


and if they had done so she would have been too 
wise, — unsophisticated as she was, — to accept the 
invitation. So where Miss Ferrol was seen she 
was seen also, and she was never so happy as 
when she was invited into her protector's room 
and allowed to spend the morning or evening 
there. She would have been content to sit there 
forever and listen to Miss Ferrol's graphic de- 
scription of life in the great world. The names of 
celebrated personages made small impression upon 
her. It was revealed gradually to Miss Ferrol 
that she had private doubts as to the actual exist- 
ence of some of them, and the rest she had never 
heard of before. 

You never read ‘ The Scarlet Letter ? ' " asked 
her instructress upon one occasion. 

She flushed guiltily. 

‘^No," she answered. ‘^Nor — nor any of the 
others." 

Miss Ferrol gazed at her silently for a few mo- 
ments. Then she asked her a question in a low 
voice, specially mellowed, so that it might not 
alarm her. 

Do you know who John Stuart Mill is ? " she 
said. 

‘‘No," she replied from the dust of humilia- 
tion. 


WORTH. 


21 


Have you never heard — just heard — of Rus- 
kin ? 

No/' 

Nor of Michael Angelo ? " 

‘‘ N-no — ye-es, I think so — perhaps, but I don't 
know what he did." 

Do you," she continued, very slowly, do — 
you — know — anything — about — Worth ? " 

No, nothing." 

Her questioner clasped her hands with repressed 
emotion. 

‘‘Oh," she cried, “how — how you have been 
neglected ! " 

She was really depressed, but her proUgie was 
so much more deeply so that she felt it her duty 
to contain herself and return to cheerfulness. 

“Never mind," she said. “I will tell you 
all I know about them, and," — after a pause for 
speculative thought upon the subject, — “by-the- 
by, it isn’t much, and I will lend you some 
books to read, and give you a list of some you 
must persuade your father to buy for you, and 
you will be all right. It is rather dreadful not 
to know the names of people and things ; but, 
after all, I think there are very few people who— 
ahem ! " 

She was checked here by rigid conscientious 


22 


LOUISIANA 


scruples. If she was to train this young mind in 
the path of learning and literature, she must place 
before her a higher standard of merit than the 
somewhat shady and slipshod one her eagerness 
had almost betrayed her into upholding. She had 
heard people talk of “standards’’ and “ideals,” 
and when she was kept to the point and in regu- 
lation working order, she could be very eloquent 
upon these subjects herself. 

“You will have to work very seriously,” she 
remarked, rather incongruously and with a rapid 
change of position. “ If you wish to — to acquire 
anything, you must read conscientiously and — and 
with a purpose.” She was rather proud of that 
last clause. 

“Must I?” inquired Louise, humbly. “I 
should like to — if I knew where to begin. Who 
was Worth ? Was he a poet ? ” 

Miss Ferrol acquired a fine, high color very 
suddenly. 

“Oh,” she answered, with some uneasiness, 
“you — you have no need to begin with Worth. 
He doesn’t matter so much — really.” 

“I thought,” Miss Rogers said meekly, “that 
you were more troubled about my not having read 
what he wrote, than about my not knowing any 
of the others.” 


WORTH. 23 

Oh, no. You see — the fact is, he — he never 
wrote anything.” 

What did he do ? ” she asked, anxious for in 
formation. 

‘‘He — it isn’t ‘did,’ it is ‘does.’ He — makes 

dresses.” 

“ Dresses ! ” 

This single word, but no exclamation poin\ 
could express its tone of wild amazement. 

“ Yes.” 

“A man!” 

“Yes.” 

There was a dead silence. It was embarrass- 
ing at first. Then the amazement of the unso- 
phisticated one began to calm itself ; it gradually 
died down, and became another emotion, merging 
itself into interest. 

“Does” — guilelessly she inquired — “he make 
nice ones ^ ” 

“Nice!” echoed Miss Ferrol. “They are 
works of art ! I have got three in my trunk.” 

“ 0-o-h ! ” sighed Louisiana. “ Oh, dear ! ” 

Miss Ferrol rose from her chair. 

“I will show them to you,” she said. “I — I 
should like you to try them on.” 

“To try them on ! ” ejaculated the child in an 
awe-stricken tone. “ Me ? ” 


24 


LOUISIANA. 


Yes/* said Miss Ferrol, unlocking the trunk 
and throwing back the lid. I have been want- 
ing to see you in them since the first day you 
came.*’ 

She took them out and laid them upon the bed 
on their trays. Louise got up from the floor and 
approaching, reverently stood near them. There 
was a cream-colored evening-dress of soft, thick, 
close-clinging silk of some antique-modern sort ; 
it had golden fringe, and golden flowers embroid- 
ered upon it. 

Look at that,” said Miss Ferrol, softly — even 
religiously. 

She made a mysterious, majestic gesture. 

‘‘Come here,” she said. “You must put it 
on.” 

Louise shrank back a pace. 

“ I — oh ! I daren’t,” she cried. “ It is too 
beautiful ! ” 

“ Come here,” repeated Miss Ferrol. 

She obeyed timorously, and gave herself into 
the hands of her controller. She was so timid 
and excited that she trembled all the time her toi- 
lette was being performed for her. Miss Ferrol 
went through this service with the manner of a 
priestess officiating at an altar. She laced up the 
back of the dress with the siender, golden cords ; 


WORTH. 


2S 


she arranged the antique drapery which wound 
itself around in close swathing folds. There was 
not the shadow of a wrinkle from shoulder to 
hem : the lovely young figure was revealed in all 
its beauty of outline. There were no sleeves at 
all, there was not very much bodice, but there 
was a great deal of effect, and this, it is to be sup^ 
posed, was the object. 

^‘Walk across the floor,’' commanded Miss 
Ferrol. 

Louisiana obeyed her. 

Do it again,” said Miss Ferrol. 

Having been obeyed for the second time, 
her hands fell together. Her attitude and ex- 
pression could be said to be significant only of 
rapture. 

‘‘ I said so ! ” she cried. I said so ! You 
might have been born in New York ! ” 

It was a grand climax. Louisiana felt it to the 
depths of her reverent young heart. But she 
could not believe it. She was sure that it was too 
sublime to be true. She shook her head in depre- 
cation. 

^‘It is no exaggeration,” said Miss Ferrol, with 
renewed fervor. Laurence himself, if he were 
not told that you had lived here, would never 
guess it. I should like to try you on him.” 


26 


LOUISIANA. 


*'Who — is he?*’ inquired Louisiana. Is he 
a writer, too ? ” 

^'Well, yes, — but not exactly like the others. 
He is my brother.” 

It was two hours before this episode ended. 
Only at the sounding of the second bell did Lou- 
isiana escape to her room to prepare for dinner. 

Miss Ferrol began to replace the dresses in her 
trunk. She performed her task in an abstracted 
mood. When she had completed it she stood up- 
right and paused a moment, with quite a startled 
air. 

‘‘Dear me!” she exclaimed. “I — actually 

forgot about Ruskin ! ” 


CHAPTER III. 


''HE IS DIFFERENT/' 

The same evening, as they sat on one of the 
seats upon the lawn, Miss Ferrol became aware 
several times that Louisiana was regarding her 
with more than ordinary interest. She sat with 
her hands folded upon her lap, her eyes fixed on her 
face, and her pretty mouth actually a little open. 

"What are you thinking of?" Olivia asked, 
at length. 

The girl started, and recovered herself with an 
effort. 

"I — well, I was thinking about — authors," she 
stammered. 

" Any particular author ? " inquired Olivia, " or 
authors as a class ? " 

" About your brother being one. I never 
thought I should see any one who knew an author 
— and you are related to one ! " 

Her companion's smile was significant of im- 


28 


LOUISIANA. 


mense experience. It was plain that she was so 
accustomed to living on terms of intimacy with 
any number of authors that she could afford to feel 
indifferent about them. 

My dear/’ she said, amiably, ** they are not 
in the least different from other people.” 

It sounded something like blasphemy. 

Not different!” cried Louisiana. ‘"Oh, 
surely, they must be ! Isn’t — isn’t your brother 
different ? ” 

Miss Ferrol stopped to think. She was very 
fond of her brother. Privately she considered him 
the literary man of his day. She was simply dis- 
gusted when she heard experienced critics only 
calling him “clever ’’and “brilliant” instead of 
“ great ” and “ world-moving.” 

“ Yes,” she replied at length, “ he is different.” 

“ I thought he must be,” said Louisiana, with a 
sigh of relief. “ You are, you know.” 

“Am I?” returned Olivia. “Thank you. 
But I am not an author — at least,” — she added, 
guiltily, nothing I have written has ever been 
published.” 

“ Oh, why not ? ” exclaimed Louisiana. 

“Why not?” she repeated, dubiously and 
thoughtfully. And then, knitting her brows, she 
said, “ I don’t know why not.” 


IS different: 


29 


** I am sure if you have ever written anything, 
it ought to have been published/’ protested her 
adorer. 

^‘/thought so,” said Miss Ferrol. ** But — but 
they didn’t.” 

‘‘They?” echoed Louisiana. “Who are 
‘ they ? ’ ” 

“ The editors,” she replied, in a rather gloomy 
manner. “ There is a great deal of wire-pull- 
ing, and favoritism, and — even envy and malice, 
of which those outside know nothing. You 
wouldn’t understand it if I should tell you about 
it.” 

For a few moments she wore quite a fell ex- 
pression, and gloom reigned. She gave her head 
a little shake. 

“ They regret it afterward,” she remarked,— 
“ frequently.” 

From which Louisiana gathered that it was the 
editors who were so overwhelmed, and she could 
not help sympathizing with them in secret. There 
was something in the picture of their unavailing 
remorse which touched her, despite her knowledge 
of the patent fact that they deserved it and could 
expect nothing better. She was quite glad when 
Olivia brightened up, as she did presently. 

“ Laurence is handsomer than most of them, 


30 


LOUISIANA. 


and has a more distinguished air/' she said 
‘‘ He is very charming. People always say so.*' 

I wish I could see him," ventured Louisiana. 

‘‘You will see him if you stay here much long- 
er," replied Miss Ferrol. “ It is quite likely he will 
come to Oakvale." 

For a moment Louisiana fluttered and turned 
pale with pleasure, but as suddenly she drooped. 

“ I forgot," she faltered. “You will have to 
be with him always, and I shall have no one. He 
won't want me." 

Olivia sat and looked at her with deepening in- 
terest. She was thinking again of a certain whim- 
sical idea which had beset her several times since 
she had attired her proUg^e in the cream-colored 
robe. 

“ Louise," she said, in a low, mysterious tone, 
“ how would you like to wear dresses like mine 
all the rest of the time you are here ? " 

The child stared at her blankly. 

“ I haven't got any," she gasped. 

“No," said Miss Ferrol, with deliberation, 
“ but I have." 

She rose from her seat, dropping her mysteri- 
ous air and smiling encouragingly. 

“ Come with me to my room,'' she'said. “ I 
want to talk to you. " 


IS different:^ l\ 

If she had ordered her to follow her to the 
stake it is not at all unlikely that Louisiana would 
have obeyed. She got up meekly, smiling, too, and 
feeling sure something very interesting was going 
to happen. She did not understand in the least, 
but she was quite tractable. And after they had 
reached the room and shut themselves in, she 
found that it was something very interesting which 
was to happen. 

You remember what I said to you this morn- 
ing? Miss Ferrol suggested. 

You said so many things.*' 

Oh, but you cannot have forgotten this partic- 
ular thing. I said you looked as if you had been 
born in New York.** 

Louisiana remembered with a glow of rapture. 

‘‘ Oh, yes,** she answered. 

And I said Laurence himself would not know, 
(f he was not told, that you had lived all your life 
here.** 

Yes.’* 

And I said I should like to try you on him.” 

‘‘Yes.** 

Miss Ferrol kept her eyes fixed on her and 
watched her closely. 

“ I have been thinking of it all the morning,” 
she added. “ I should like to try you on him.** 


32 


LOUISIANA, 


Louisiana was silent a moment. Then she 
spoke, hesitatingly : 

‘‘ Do you mean that I should pretend she 

began. 

‘‘ Oh, no,*' interrupted Miss Ferrol. ‘‘ Not 
pretend either one thing or the other. Only let 
me dress you as I choose, and then take care that 
you say nothing whatever about your past life. 
You will have to be rather quiet, perhaps, and let 
him talk. He will like that, of course — men always 
do — and then you will learn a great many things 
from him.*' 

It will be — a very strange thing to do," said 
Louisiana. 

It will be a very interesting thing," answered 
Olivia, her enthusiasm increasing. How he will 
admire you ! " 

Louisiana indulged in one of her blushes. 

Have you a picture of him ? " 

Yes. Why ? ** she asked, in some surprise. 
Because I should like to see his face.** 

Do you think,** Miss Ferrol said, in further 
bewilderment, that you might not like him ? ** 

I think he might not like me.** 

Not like you ! ** cried Miss Ferrol. You ! 
He will think you are divine — when you are 
dressed as I shall dress you." 


IS DIFFERENT^^ 


33 


She went to her trunk and produced the pic- 
ture. It was not a photograph, but a little crayon 
head — the head of a handsome man, whose ex- 
pression was a singular combination of dreami- 
ness and alertness. It was a fascinating face. 

One of his friends did it,’' said Miss Ferrol. 

His friends are very fond of him and admire his 
good looks very much. They protest against his 
being photographed. They like to sketch him. 
They are always making ^ studies ’ of his head. 
What do you think of him ? ” 

Louisiana hesitated. 

He is different,” she said at last. I thought 
he would be.” 

She gave the picture back to Miss Ferrol, who 
/eplaced it in her trunk. She sat for a few sec- 
onds looking down at the carpet and apparently 
seeing very little. Then she looked up at her 
companion, who was suddenly a little embarrassed 
at finding her receive her whimsical planning so 
seriously. She herself had not thought of it as 
being serious at all. It would be interesting and 
amusing, and would prove her theory. 

‘‘ I will do what you want me to do,” said 
Louisiana. 

‘‘ Then,” said Miss Ferrol, wondering at an un- 


2 ’ 


34 


LOUISIANA. 


expected sense of discomfort in herself, “ I will 
dress you for supper now. You must begin to 
wear the things, so that you may get used to 
them.” 


CHAPTER IV. 

A NEW TYPE. 

When the two entered the supper-room to- 
gether a little commotion was caused by their ar- 
rival. At first the supple young figure in violet 
and gray was not recognized. It was not the 
figure people had been used to, it seemed so tall 
and slenderly round. The reddish-brown hair P ^ /3 
was combed high and made into soft puffs ; it 
made the pretty head seem more delicately shaped, 
and showed how white and graceful the back of 
the slender neck was. It was several minutes be- 
fore the problem was solved. Then a sharp young 
woman exclaimed, sotto voce : 

‘‘ It’s the little country-girl, in new clothes — in 
clothes that fit. Would you believe it ? ” 

“ Don’t look at your plate so steadily,” whis- 
pered Miss Ferrol. Lean back and fan your- 
self as if you did not hear. Yoi* •nust never show 
that you hear things.” 


5 ^ 


LOUISIANA. 


‘‘ I shall be obliged to give her a few hints no\9 
and then/* she had said to herself beforehand. 
“ But I feel sure when she once catches the cue 
she will take it.’* 

It really seemed as if she did, too. She had 
looked at herself long and steadily after she had 
been dressed, and when she turned away from the 
glass she held her head a trifle more erect, and 
her cheeks had reddened. Perhaps what she had 
recognized in the reflection she had seen had 
taught her a lesson. But she said nothing. In a 
few days Olivia herself was surprised at the prog- 
ress she had made. Sanguine as she was, she 
had not been quite prepared for the change which 
had taken place in her. She had felt sure it 
would be necessary to teach her to control her 
emotions, but suddenly she seemed to have 
learned to control them without being told to do 
so ; she was no longer demonstrative of her affec- 
tion, she no longer asked innocent questions, nor 
did she ever speak of her family. Her reserve 
was puzzling to Olivia. 

You are very clever,** she said to her one day, 
the words breaking from her in spite of herself, 
after she had sat regarding her in silence for a few 
minutes. ‘‘You are even cleverer than I thought 
you were, Louise.** 


A NEW TYPE. 


V 


Was that very clever ? ” the girl asked. 

^‘Yes, it was/’ Olivia answered, *'but not so 
clever as you are proving yourself.” 

But Louisiana did not smile or blush, as she had 
expected she would. She sat very quietly, show- 
ing neither pleasure nor shyness, and seeming for 
a moment or so to be absorbed in thought. 

In the evening when the stages came in they 
were sitting on the front gallery together. As the 
old rattletraps bumped and swung themselves up 
the gravel drive, Olivia bent forward to obtain a 
better view of the passengers. 

He ought to be among them,” she said. 

Louisiana laid her hand on her arm. 

'‘Who is that sitting with the driver?” she 
asked, as the second vehicle passed them. " Isn’t 
that ” 

" To be sure it is ! ” exclaimed Miss Ferrol. 

She would have left her seat, but she found 
herself detained. Her companion had grasped 
her wrist. 

"Wait a minute!” she said. "Don’t leave 
me 1 Oh — I wish I had not done it 1 ” 

Miss Ferrol turned and stared at her in amaze- 
ment. 

She spoke in her old, uncontrolled, childish 
fashion. She was pale, and her eyes were dilated. 


38 


LOUISIANA, 


What is the matter ? said Miss Ferrol, hun 
riedly, when she found her voice. Isit that you 
really don’t like the idea ? If you don’t, there is 
no need of our carrying it out. It was only non- 
sense — I beg your pardon for not seeing that it 
disturbed you. Perhaps, after all, it was very bad 
taste in me ” 

But she was not allowed to finish her sentence. 
As suddenly as it had altered before, Louisiana’s 
expression altered again. She rose to her feet 
with a strange little smile. She looked into Miss 
Ferrol’s astonished face steadily and calmly. 

Your brother has seen you and is coming 
toward us,” she said. I will leave you. We 
shall see each other again at supper.” 

And with a little bow she moved away with 
an air of composure which left her instructress 
stunned. She could scarcely recover her equilib- 
rium sufficiently to greet her brother decently 
when he reached her side. She had never been 
so thoroughly at sea in her life. 

After she had gone to her room that night, her 
brother came and knocked at the door. 

When she opened it and let him in he walked 
to a chair and threw himself into it, wearing a 
rather excited look. 


A NEW TYPE. 39 

Olivia/* he began at once, what a bewilder- 
ing girl ! ** 

Olivia sat down opposite to him, with a com- 
posed smile. 

Miss Rogers, of course ? ** she said. 

‘^Ofcourse,** he echoed. And then, after a pause 
of two or three seconds, he added, in the tone he had 
used before : * ‘ What a delightfully mysterious girl ! ** 

‘‘ Mysterious ! *’ repeated Olivia. 

'' There is no other word for it ! She has such 
an adorable face, she looks so young, and she says 
so little.** And then, with serious delight, he 
added : It is a new type ! ** 

Olivia began to laugh. 

‘‘ Why are you laughing? ** he demanded. 

Because I was so sure you would say that,* 
she answered. ‘‘ I was waiting for it.’* 

But it is true,** he replied, quite vehemently. 

I never saw anything like her before. I look at 
her great soft eyes and I catch glimpses of expres- 
sion which don*t seem to belong to the rest of her. 
When I see her eyes I could fancy for a moment 
that she had been brought up in a convent or had 
lived a very simple, isolated life, but when she 
speaks and moves I am bewildered. I want to 
hear her talk, but she says so little. She does not 
even dance. I suppose her relatives are serious 


40 


LOUISIANA. 


people. I dare say you have not heard much o! 
them from her. Her reserve is so extraordinary 
in a girl. I wonder how old she is ? 

Nineteen, I think.’' 

I thought so. I never saw anything prettier 
than her quiet way when I asked her to dance 
with me. She said, simply, ‘ I do not dance. I 
have never learned.* It was as if she had never 
thought of it as being an unusual thing.” 

He talked of her all the time he remained in the 
room. Olivia had never seen him so interested 
before. 

The fascination is that she seems to be two 
creatures at once,” he said. ‘‘ And one of them 
is stronger than the other and will break out and 
reveal itself one day. I begin by feeling I do not 
understand her, and that is the most interesting 
of all beginnings. I long to discover which of the 
two creatures is the real one.” 

When he was going away he stopped suddenly 
to say : 

** How was it you never mentioned her in your 
letters ? I can’t understand that.” 

I wanted you to see her for yourself,” Olivia 
answered. ‘‘ I thought I would wait.” 

** Well,” he said, after thinking a moment, ** I 
am glad, after all, that you did.” 


CHAPTER V. 


*•1 HAVE HURT YOU.’’ 

From the day of his arrival a new life began for 
Louisiana. She was no longer an obscure and 
unconsidered young person. Suddenly, and for 
the first time in her life, she found herself vested 
with a marvellous power. It was a power girls 
of a different class from her own are vested with 
from the beginning of their lives. They are used 
to it and regard it as their birthright. Louisiana 
was not used to it. There had been nothing like 
it attending her position as that purty gal o’ 
Rogerses.” She was accustomed to the admira- 
tion of men she was indifferent to — men who wore 
short-waisted blue-jean coats, and turned upon 
their elbows to stare at her as she sat in the little 
white frame church. After making an effort to 
cultivate her acquaintance, they generally went 
away disconcerted. She’s mighty still,” they 
said. ** She haint got nothin’ to say. Seems like 


42 


LOUISIANA. 


thar aint much to her — but she’s powerful purty 
though.” 

This was nothing like her present experience. 
She began slowly to realize that she was a little 
like a young queen now. Here was a man such 
as she had never spoken to before, who was always 
ready to endeavor to his utmost to please her : 
who, without any tendency toward sentimental 
nonsense, was plainly the happier for her presence 
and favor. What could be more assiduous and 
gallant than the every-day behavior of the well- 
bred, thoroughly experienced young man of the 
period toward the young beauty who for the mo- 
ment reigns over his fancy ! It need only be over 
his fancy ; there is no necessity that the impres- 
sion should be any deeper. His suavity, his chiv- 
alric air, his ready wit in her service, are all that 
could be desired. 

When Louisiana awakened to the fact that all 
this homage was rendered to her as being only the 
natural result of her girlish beauty — as if it was 
the simplest thing in the world, and a state of af^ 
fairs which must have existed from the first — she 
experienced a sense of terror. Just at the very 
first she would have been glad to escape from it 
and sink into her old obscurity. 

It does not belong to me,” she said to herself 


HAVE HURT YOU: 


43 


It belongs to some one else — to the girl he thinks 
lam. I am not that girl, though ; I will remem- 
ber that.” 

But in a few days she calmed down. She told 
herself that she always did remember, but she 
ceased to feel frightened and was more at ease. 
She never talked very much, but she became more 
familiar with the subjects she heard discussed. 
One morning she went to Olivia’s room and asked 
her for the address of a bookseller. 

I want to send for some books and — and mag- 
azines,” she said, confusedly. ‘‘I wish you — if 
you would tell me what to send for. Father will 
give me the money if I ask him for it.” 

Olivia sat down and made a list. It was along 
list, comprising the best periodicals of the day and 
several standard books. 

When she handed it to her she regarded her 
with curiosity. 

You mean to read them all?” she asked. 

‘‘Isn’t it time that I should?” replied her 
pupil. 

“Well — it is a good plan,” returned Olivia, 
rather absently. 

Truth to tell, she was more puzzled every day. 
She had begun to be quite sure that something 
had happened. It seemed as if a slight coldness 


♦4 


LOUISIANA. 


existed between herself and her whilom adorer. 
The simplicity of her enthusiasm was gone. Her 
affection had changed as her outward bearing. It 
was a better regulated and less noticeable emotion. 
Once or twice Olivia fancied she had seen the 
girl looking at her even sadly, as if she felt, for the 
moment, a sense of some loss. 

Perhaps it was very clumsy in me,” she used 
to say to herself. Perhaps I don’t understand 
her, after all.” 

But she could not help looking on with interest. 
She had never before seen Laurence enjoy himself 
so thoroughly. He had been working very hard 
during the past year, and was ready for his holi- 
day. He found the utter idleness, which was the 
chief feature of the place, a good thing. There 
was no town or village within twenty miles, news- 
papers were a day or two old when they arrived, 
there were very few books to be found, and there 
was absolutely no excitement. At night the band 
brayed in the empty-looking ball-room, and a few 
very young couples danced, in a desultory fashion 
and without any ceremony. The primitive, do- 
mesticated slowness of the place was charming 
Most of the guests had come from the far South 
at the beginning of the season and would remain 
until the close of it ; so they had had time to be- 


HAVE HURT YOUT 4S 

come familiar with each other and to throw aside 
restraint. 

'' There is nothing to distract one/’ Ferrol said, 

nothing to rouse one, nothing to inspire one — 
nothing ! It is delicious ! Why didn’t I know 
of it before ? ” 

He had plenty of time to study his sister’s 
friend. She rode and walked with him and 
Olivia when they made their excursions, she 
listened while he read aloud to them as he lay 
on the grass in a quiet corner of the grounds. 
He thought her natural reserve held her from 
expressing her opinion on what he read very 
freely ; it certainly did not occur to him that she 
was beginning her literary education under his 
guidance. He could see that the things which 
pleased him most were not lost upon her. Her 
face told him that. One moonlight night, as 
they sat on an upper gallery, he began to speak 
of the novelty of the aspect of the country as it 
presented itself to an outsider who saw it for the 
first time. 

‘‘ It is a new life, and a new people,” he said. 
‘‘And, by the way, Olivia, where is the new 
species of young woman I was to see — the 
daughter of the people who does not belong to 
her sphere ? ” 


46 


LOUISIANA. 


He turned to Louisiana. 

‘^Have you ever seen her?’^ he asked. I 
must confess to a dubiousness on the subject.’' 

Before he could add another word Louisiana 
turned upon him. He could see her face clearly 
in the moonlight. It was white, and her eyes 
were dilated and full of fire. 

‘‘ Why do you speak in that way?” she cried. 
‘‘As if — as if such people were so far beneath 
you. What right have you ” 

She stopped suddenly. Laurence Ferrol was 
gazing at her in amazement. She rose from her 
seat, trembling. 

“I will go away a little,” she said. “I beg 
your pardon — and Miss Ferrol’s.” 

She turned her back upon them and went 
away. Ferrol sat holding her little round, white- 
feather fan helplessly, and staring after her until 
she disappeared. 

It was several seconds before the silence was 
broken. It was he who broke it. 

“I don’t know what it means,” he said, in a 
low voice. “ I don’t know what I have done ! ” 

In a little while he got up and began to roam 
aimlessly about the gallery. He strolled from 
one end to the other with his hands thrust in his 
coat pockets. Olivia, who had remained seated^ 


HAVE HURT YOU 


47 


knew that he was waiting in hopes that Louisiana 
would return. He had been walking to and fro, 
looking as miserable as possible, for about half an 
hour, when at last she saw him pause and turn 
half round before the open door of an upper cor^ 
ridor leading out upon the verandah. A black 
figure stood revealed against the inside light. It 
was Louisiana, and, after hesitating a moment, 
she moved slowly forward. 

She had not recovered her color, but her man- 
ner was perfectly quiet. 

I am glad you did not go away,’’ she said. 

Ferrol had only stood still at first, waiting her 
pleasure, but the instant she spoke he made a 
quick step toward her. 

I should have felt it a very hard thing not to 
have seen you again before I slept,” he said. 

She made no reply, and they walked together 
in silence until they reached the opposite end of 
the gallery. 

‘‘ Miss Ferrol has gone in,” she said then. 

He turned to look and saw that such was the 
case. Suddenly, for some reason best known to 
herself, Olivia had disappeared from the scene. 

Louisiana leaned against one of the slender, 
supporting pillars of the gallery. She did not 
look at Ferrol, but at the blackness of the moun* 


48 


LOUISIANA. 


tains rising before them. Ferrol could not look 
away from her. 

If you had not come out again/* he said, 
after a pause, I think I should have remained 
here, baying at the moon, all night.’* 

Then, as she made no reply, he began to pour 
himself forth quite recklessly. 

I cannot quite understand how I hurt you/* 
he said. It seemed to me that I must have 
hurt you, but even while I don*t understand, 
there are no words abject enough to express 
what I feel now and have felt during the last half 
hour. If I only dared ask you to tell me ** 

She stopped him. 

I can’t tell you,” she said. ‘‘ But it is not 
your fault — it is nothing you could have under- 
stood — it is my fault — all my fault, and — I de- 
serve it.” 

He was terribly discouraged. 

‘‘I am bewildered,” he said. *'1 am very 
unhappy.** 

She turned her pretty, pale face round to him 
swiftly. 

It is not you who need be unhappy,” she ex 
claimed. It is I ! ” 

The next instant she had checked herself againi 
just as she had done before. 


HAVE HURT YOU'* 49 

‘‘Let us talk of something else,” she said» 
coldly. 

“ It will not be easy for me to do so,” he 
answered, “ but I will try.” 

Before Olivia went to bed she had a visit from 
her. 

She received her with some embarrassment, it 
must be confessed. Day by day she felt less at 
ease with her and more deeply self-convicted of 
some blundering, — which, to a young woman of 
her temperament, was a sharp penalty. 

Louisiana would not sit down. She revealed 
her purpose in coming at once. 

“ I want to ask you to make me a promise,” 
she said, “ and I want to ask your pardon.” 

“ Don't do that,” said Olivia. 

“ I want you to promise that you will not tell 
your brother the truth until you have left here 
and are at home. I shall go away very soon. I 
am tired of what I have been doing. It is differ- 
ent from what you meant it to be. But you must 
promise that if you stay after I have gone — as 
of course you will — you will not tell him. My 
home is only a few miles away. You might be 
tempted, after thinking it over, to come and see 
me — and I should not like it. I want it all to 


3 


LOUISIANA. 


50 

stop here — I mean my part of it. I don*t want 
to know the rest.'* 

Olivia had never felt so helpless in her life. 
She had neither self-poise, nor tact, nor any other 
daring quality left. 

“ I wish," she faltered, gazing at the girl quite 
pathetically, “ I wish we had never begun it." 

‘‘So do I," said Louisiana. “Do you prom^ 
ise?" 

“Y-yes. I would promise anything. I — I 
have hurt your feelings," she confessed, in an 
outbreak. 

She was destined to receive a fresh shock. All 
at once the girl was metamorphosed again. It 
was her old ignorant, sweet, simple self who stood 
there, with trembling lips and dilated eyes. 

“Yes, you have!" she cried. “Yes, you 
have ! " 

And she burst into tears and turned about and 
ran out of the room. 


CHAPTER VI. 


THE ROAD TO THE RIGHT. 

The morning after, Ferrol heard an announce- 
ment which came upon him like a clap of thunder. 

After breakfast, as they walked about the 
grounds, Olivia, who had seemed to be in an 
abstracted mood, said, without any preface : 

Miss Rogers returns home to-morrow/’ 

Laurence stopped short in the middle of the 
path. 

To-morrow ! ” he exclaimed. Oh, no.” 

He glanced across at Louisiana with an anxious 
face. 

Yes,” she said, I am going home.” 

To New York ?” 

‘‘ I do not live in New York.” 

She spoke quite simply, but the words were a 
shock to him. They embarrassed him. There 
was no coldness in her manner, no displeasure in 
her tone, but, of course, he understood that it 


52 


LOUISIANA. 


would be worse than tactless to inquire further* 
Was it possible that she did not care that he 
should know where she lived ? There seemed no 
other construction to be placed upon her words. 
He flushed a little, and for a few minutes looked 
rather gloomy, though he quickly recovered him- 
self afterward and changed the subject with cred- 
itable readiness. 

Did not you tell me she lived in New York ? 
he asked Olivia, the first time they were alone to- 
gether. 

No,*' Olivia answered, a trifle sharply. Why 
New York, more than another place ? ** 

For no reason whatever, — really," he return- 
ed, more bewildered than ever. ‘‘There was no 
reason why I should choose New York, only 
when I spoke to her of certain places there, she 
—she " 

He paused and thought the matter over care- 
fully before finishing his sentence. He ended it 
at last in a singular manner. 

“ She said nothing," he said. “ It is actually true 
— now I think of it — she said nothing whatever ! " 

“ And because she said nothing whatever " 

began Olivia. 

He drew his hand across his forehead with a 
puzzled gesture. 


THE ROAD TO THE RIGHT , 


53 


I fancied she looked as if she knew/' he said, 
slowly. “I am sure she looked as if she knew 
what I was talking about — as if she knew the 
places, I mean. It is very queer ! There seems 
no reason in it. Why shouldn't she wish us to 
know where she lives ? 

I — I must confess," cried Olivia, that I am 
getting a little tired of her." 

It was treacherous and vicious, and she knew it 
was ; but her guilty conscience and her increasing 
sense of having bungled drove her to desperation. 
If she had not promised to keep the truth to her- 
self, she would have been only too glad to unbur- 
den herself. It was so stupid, after all, and she 
had only herself to blame. 

Laurence drew a long breath. 

‘‘You cannot be tired of her / " he said. “ That 
is impossible. She takes firmer hold upon one 
every hour." 

This was certainly true, as far as he was con- 
cerned. He was often even surprised at his own 
enthusiasm. He had seen so many pretty women 
that it was almost inconsistent that he should be 
so much moved by the prettiness of one charming 
creature, and particularly one who spoke so little, 
who, after all, was — but there he always found 
himself at a full stop. He could not say what she 


54 


LOUISIANA. 


was, he did not know yet ; really, he seemed no 
nearer the solution of the mystery than he had 
been at first. There lay the fascination. He felt 
so sure there was an immense deal for him to dis- 
cover, if he could only discover it. He had an 
ideal in his mind, and this ideal, he felt confident, 
was the real creature, if he could only see her. 
During the episode on the upper gallery he fan- 
cied he had caught a glimpse of what was to be 
revealed. The sudden passion on her pale young 
face, the fire in her eyes, were what he had 
dreamed of. 

If he had not been possessed of courage and an 
honest faith in himself, born of a goodly amount 
of success, he would have been far more depressed 
than he was. She was going away, and had not 
encouraged him to look forward to their meeting 
again. 

“ I own it is rather bad to look at,” he said to 
himself, “ if one quite believed that Fate would 
serve one such an ill turn. She never played me 
such a trick, however, and I won’t believe she 
will. I shall see her again — sometime. It will 
turn out fairly enough, surely.” 

So with this consolation he supported himself. 
There was one day left and he meant to make the 
best of it. It was to be spent in driving to a cer- 


THE ROAD TO THE RIGHT. 55 

tain mountain, about ten miles distant. All tour- 
ists who were possessed of sufficient energy made 
this excursion as a matter of duty, if from no more 
enthusiastic motive. A strong, light carriage and 
a pair of horses were kept in the hotel stables for 
the express purpose of conveying guests to this 
special point. ^ 

This vehicle Ferrol had engaged the day before, 
and as matters had developed he had cause to 
congratulate himself upon the fact. He said to 
Louisiana what he had before said to himself: 

We have one day left, and we will make the 
best of it.’’ 

Olivia, who stood upon the gallery before which 
the carriage had been drawn up, glanced at Lou- 
isiana furtively. On her part she felt privately that 
it would be rather hard to make the best of it. She 
wished that it was well over. But Louisiana did 
not return her glance. She was looking at Ferrol 
and the horses. She had done something new 
this morning. She had laid aside her borrowed 
splendor and attired herself in one of her own 
dresses, which she had had the boldness to re- 
model. She had seized a hint from some one of 
Olivia’s possessions, and had given her costume a 
pretty air of primitive simplicity. It was a plain 
white lawn, with a little frilled cape or fichu which 


56 


LOUISIANA. 


crossed upon her breast, and was knotted looselj^ 
behind. She had a black velvet ribbon around 
her lithe waist, a rose in her bosom where the fichu 
crossed, and a broad Gainsborough hat upon her 
head. One was reminded somewhat of the pic- 
turesque young woman of the good old colony 
times. Ferrol, at least, when he first caught sight 
of her, was reminded of pictures he had seen of 
them. 

There was no trace of her last night’s fire in her 
manner. She was quieter than usual through the 
first part of the drive. She was gentle to submis- 
siveness to Olivia. There was something even 
tender in her voice once or twice when she ad- 
dressed her. Laurence noticed it, and accounted 
for it naturally enough. 

She is really fonder of her than she has 
seemed,” he thought, and she is sorry that their 
parting is so near.” 

He was just arriving at this conclusion when 
Louisiana touched his arm. 

“ Don’t take that road,” she said. 

He drew up his horses and looked at her with 
surprise. There were two roads before them, 
and he had been upon the point of taking the one 
to the right. 

But it is the only road to take,” he continued. 


THE ROAD TO THE RIGHT 


57 


‘‘ The other does not lead to the mountain. I 
was told to be sure to take the road to the right 
hand.*' 

‘‘ It is a mistake/* she said, in a disturbed tone. 

The left-hand road leads to the mountain, too — 
at least, we can reach it by striking the wagon- 
road through the woods. I — yes, I am sure of 
it.** 

But this is the better road. Is there any rea- 
son why you prefer the other ? Could you pilot 
us ? If you can ** 

He stopped and looked at her appealingly. 

He was ready to do anything she wished, but 
the necessity for his yielding had passed. Her 
face assumed a set look. 

‘‘ I can't,** she answered. ^^Take the road to 
the right. Why not ? ** 

3 * 


.4 


CHAPTER VII. 


SHE AINT YERE.” 

Ferrol was obliged to admit when they turned 
their faces homeward that the day was hardly a 
success, after all. Olivia had not been at her best, 
for some reason or other, and from the moment 
they had taken the right-hand road Louisiana had 
been wholly incomprehensible. 

In her quietest mood she had never worn a cold 
air before ; to-day she had been cold and unre- 
sponsive. It had struck him that she was ab- 
sorbed in thinking of something which was quite 
beyond him. She was plainly not thinking of 
him, nor of Olivia, nor of the journey they were 
making. During the drive she had sat with her 
hands folded upon her lap, her eyes fixed straight 
before her. She had paid no attention to the 
scenery, only rousing herself to call their atten- 
tion to one object. This object was a house they 
passed — the rambling, low-roofed white house of 


59 


*^SHE AINT YEREr 

some well-to-do farmer. It was set upon a small 
hill and had a long front porch, mottled with blue 
and white paint in a sanguine attempt at imitating 
variegated marble. 

She burst into a low laugh when she saw it. 

‘‘ Look at that/* she said. ‘‘ That is one of 
the finest houses in the country. The man who 
owns it is counted a rich man among his neigh- 
bors.” 

Ferrol put up his eye-glasses to examine it. 
(It is to be deplored that he was a trifle near- 
sighted.) 

‘‘By George!” he said. “That is an idea, 
isn’t it, that marble business ! I wonder who did 
it ? Do you know the man who lives there ? ” 

I have heard of him,” she answered, “from 
several people. He is a namesake of mine. His 
name is Rogers.” 

When they returned to their carriage, after a 
ramble up the mountain-side, they became con- 
scious that the sky had suddenly darkened. Fer- 
rol looked up, and his face assumed a rather seri- 
ous expression. 

‘^If either of you is weather-wise,” he said, “ I 
wish you would tell me what that cloud means. 
You have been among the mountains longer than 
I have.” 


6o 


LOUISIANA. 


Louisiana glanced upward quickly. 

‘‘It means a storm/’ she said, “and a heavy 
one. We shall be drenched in half an hour.” 

Ferrol looked at her white dress and the little 
frilled fichu, which was her sole protection. 

“ Oh, but that won’t do ! ” he exclaimed. 
“ What insanity in me not to think of umbrel- 
las ! ” 

“ Umbrellas ! ” echoed Louisiana. “ If we 
had each six umbrellas they could not save us. 
We may as well get into the carriage. We are 
only losing time.” 

They were just getting in when an idea struck 
Ferrol which caused him to utter an exclamation 
of ecstatic relief. 

“Why,” he cried, “there is that house we 
passed ! Get in quickly. We can reach there in 
twenty minutes.” 

Louisiana had her foot upon the step. She 
stopped short and turned to face him. She 
changed from red to white and from white to red 
again, as if with actual terror. 

“ There ! ” she exclaimed. “ There ! ” 

“ Yes,” he answered. “ We can reach there in 
time to save ourselves. Is there any objection to 
our going, — in the last extremity ? ” 

For a second they looked into each other’s 


^^SHE AINT YERE: 


6l 


eyes, and then she turned and sprang into the 
carriage. She laughed aloud. 

‘‘ Oh, no,*' she said. Go there ! It will be 
a nice place to stay — and the people will amuse 
you. Go there.'’ 

They reached the house in a quarter of an hour 
instead of twenty minutes. They had driven fast 
and kept ahead of the storm, but when they drew 
up before the picket fence the clouds were black 
and the thunder was rolling behind them. 

It was Louisiana who got out first. She led 
the way up the path to the house and mounted 
the steps of the variegated porch. She did not 
knock at the door, which stood open, but, some- 
what to Ferrol's amazement, walked at once into 
the front room, which was plainly the room of 
state. Not to put too fine a point upon it, it was 
a hideous room. 

The ceiling was so low that Ferrol felt as 
if he must knock his head against it; it was 
papered — ceiling and all — with paper of an 
unwholesome yellow enlivened with large blue 
flowers ; there was a bedstead in one corner, 
and the walls were ornamented with colored lith- 
ographs of moon-faced houris, with round eyes 
and round, red cheeks, and wearing low-necked 
dresses, and flowers in their bosoms, and bright 


62 


LOUISIANA. 


yellow gold necklaces. These works of art were 
the first things which caught FerroFs eye, and 
he went slowly up to the most remarkable, and 
stood before it, regarding it with mingled wonder 
ment and awe. 

He turned from it after a few seconds to look 
at Louisiana, who stood near him, and he beheld 
what seemed to him a phenomenon. He had 
never seen her blush before as other women blush 
— now she was blushing, burning red from chin to 
brow. 

There — there is no one in this part of the 
house,'' she said. I — I know more of these 

people than you do, I will go and try to find 
some one." 

She was gone before he could interpose. Not 
that he would have interposed, perhaps. Some- 
how — without knowing why — he felt as if she did 
know more of the situation than he did — almost 
as if she were, in a manner, doing the honors for 
the time being. 

She crossed the passage with a quick, uneven 
step, and made her way, as if well used to the 
place, into the kitchen at the back of the house. 

A stout negro woman stood at a table, filling a 
pan with newly made biscuits. Her back was tor 
ward the door and she did not see who entered. 


**SHE AINT YERE:^ 63 

Aunt Cassandry/’ the girl began, when the 
woman turned toward her. 

‘‘ Who's dar ? " she exclaimed. “ Lor’, honey, 
how ye skeert me ! I aint no C’sandry.” 

The face she turned was a strange one, and it 
showed no sign of recognition of her visitor. 

It was an odd thing that the sight of her unfa- 
miliar face should have been a shock to Louisi- 
ana ; but it was a shock. She put her hand to 
her side. 

Where is my — where is Mr. Rogers?” she 
asked. I want to see him.” 

^^Out on de back po’ch, honey, right now. 
Dar he goes ! ” 

The girl heard him, and flew out to meet him. 
Her heart was throbbing hard, and she was draw- 
ing quick, short breaths. 

Father ! ” she cried. Father ! Don’t go in 
the house ! ” 

And she caught him by both shoulders and 
drew him round. He did not know her at first in 
her fanciful-simple dress and her Gainsborough 
hat. He was not used to that style of thing, be- 
lieving that it belonged rather to the world of 
pictures. He stared at her. Then he broke out 
with an exclamation, 

Lo-rd ! Louisianny 1 ” 


64 


LOUISIANA. 


She kept her eyes on his face. They were fe^ 
verishly bright, and her cheeks were hot. She 
laughed hysterically. 

‘‘Don’t speak loud,” she said. “There are 
some strange people in the house, and — and I 
want to tell you something.” 

He was a slow man, and it took him some time 
to grasp the fact that she was really before him in 
the flesh. He said, again : 

“ Lord, Louisianny ! ” adding, cheerfully, 
“ How yeVe serprised me ! ” 

Then he took in afresh the change in her dress. 
There was a pile of stove-wood stacked on the 
porch to be ready for use, and he sat down on it 
to look at her. 

“Why, yeVe got a new dress on ! ” he said. 
“ Thet thar’s what made ye look sorter curis. I 
hardly knowed ye.” 

Then he remembered what she had said on first 
seeing him. 

“ Why don’t ye want me to go in the house ? ” 
he asked. “ What sort o’ folks air they ? ” 

“They came with me from the Springs,” she 
answered ; “ and — and I want to — to play a joke 
on them.” 

She put her hands up to her burning cheeks, 
and stood so. 


^^SHE AINT YERE: 


65 


A joke on 'em ? " he repeated. 

Yes," she said, speaking very fast. ‘‘ They 
don't know I live here, they think I came from 
some city, — they took the notion themselves, — 
and I want to let them think so until we go 
away from the house. It will be such a good 
joke." 

She tried to laugh, but broke off in the middle 
of a harsh sound. Her father, with one copperas- 
colored leg crossed over the other, was chewing 
his tobacco slowly, after the manner of a rumina- 
ting animal, while he watched her. 

Don't you see ? " she asked. 

‘‘ Wa-al, no," he answered. ‘‘Not rightly." 

She actually assumed a kind of spectral gayety. 

‘ ‘ I never thought of it until I saw it was not 
Cassandry who was in the kitchen," she said. 
“ The woman who is there didn't know me, and 
it came into my mind that — that we might play 
off on them," using the phraseology to which he 
was the most accustomed. 

“ Waal, we mought," he admitted, with a spec- 
ulative deliberateness. “ Thet's so. We mought 
-—if thar was any use in it." 

“ It's only for a joke," she persisted, hurriedly. 

“ Thet’s so," he repeated. “ Thet’s so." 

He got up slowly and rather lumberingly from 


66 


LOUISIANA. 


his seat and dusted the chips from his copperas* 
colored legs. 

Hev ye ben enjyin* yerself, Louisianny ? ’’ he 
asked. 

Yes/’ she answered. Never better.” 

Ye must hev,” he returned, or ye wouldn’t 
be in sperrits to play jokes.” 

Then he changed his tone so suddenly that she 
was startled. 

What do ye want me to do ? ” he asked. 

She put her hand on his shoulder and tried to 
laugh again. 

To pretend you don’t know me — to pretend 
I have never been here before. That’s joke 
enough, isn’t it ? They will think so when I tell 
them the truth. You slow old father ! Why 
don’t you laugh ? ” 

P’r’aps,” he said, it’s on account o’ me bein’ 
slow, Louisianny. Mebbe I shall begin arter a 
while.” 

'' Don’t begin at the wrong time,” she said, 
still keeping up her feverish laugh, or you’ll 
spoil it all. Now come along in and — and pre- 
tend you don’t know me,” she continued, draw- 
ing him forward by the arm. They might sus- 
pect something if we stay so long. All you’ve 
got to do is to pretend you don’t know me.” 


^•SHE AINT YERE: 


67 


^‘Thefs so, Louisianny,*’ with a kindly glance 
downward at her excited face as he followed her 
out. ‘‘ Thar aint no call fur me to do nothin" 
else, is there — ^just pretend I don’t know ye ? ” 

It was wonderful how well he did it, too. 
When she preceded him into the room the girl 
was quivering with excitement. He might break 
down, and it would be all over in a second. But 
she looked Ferrol boldly in the face when she 
made her first speech. 

‘‘This is the gentleman of the house,"" she said. 
“ I found him on the back porch. He had just 
come in. He has been kind enough to say we 
may stay until the storm is over. "" 

“ Oh, yes,"" said he hospitably, “stay an’ wel- 
come. Ye aint the first as has stopped over. 
Storms come up sorter suddent, an" we haint the 
kind as turns folks away."" 

Ferrol thanked him, Olivia joining in with a 
murmur of gratitude. They were very much in- 
debted to him for his hospitality ; they considered 
themselves very fortunate. 

Their host received their protestations with 
much equanimity. 

“ If ye"d like to set out on the front porch and 
watch the storm come up,"" he said, “ thar"s seats 
thar. Or would ye druther set here ? Women- 


68 


LOUISIANA, 


folks is genVally fond o* settin’ in-doors whaf 
thar’s a parlor/* 

But they preferred the porch, and followed him 
out upon it. 

Having seen them seated, he took a chair him- 
self. It was a split-seated chair, painted green, 
and he tilted it back against a pillar of the porch 
and applied himself to the full enjoyment of a 
position more remarkable for ease than elegance. 
Ferrol regarded him with stealthy rapture, and 
drank in every word he uttered. 

** This,” he had exclaimed delightedly to Olivia, 
in private — ^‘why, this is delightful! These are 
the people we have read of. I scarcely believed 
in them before. I would not have missed it for 
the world ! ” 

In gin’ral, now,** their entertainer proceeded, 

wimmin-folk is fonder o’ settin* in parlors. My 
wife was powerful sot on her parlor. She wasn*t 
never satisfied till she hed one an’ hed it fixed up 
to her notion. She was allers tradin’ fur picters 
fur it. She tuk a heap o* pride in her picters. 
She allers had it in her mind that her little gal 
should have a showy parlor when she growed 
up/* 

‘‘ You have a daughter ? ** said Ferrol. 

Their host hitched his chair a little to one side 


^^SHE AINT verb: 


69 

He bent forward to expectorate, and then an- 
swered with his eyes fixed upon some distant 
point toward the mountains. 

‘‘Wa-al, yes,*' he said; ^^but she aint yere, 
Louisianny aint." 

Miss Ferrol gave a little start, and immediately 
made an effort to appear entirely at ease. 

‘‘Did you say," asked Ferrol, “that your 
daughter's name was " 

“ Louisianny," promptly. “ I come from 
thar." 

Louisiana got up and walked to the opposite 
end of the porch. 

“ The storm will be upon us in a few minutes," 
she said. “It is beginning to rain now. Come 
and look at this cloud driving over the mountain- 
top." 

Ferrol rose and went to her. He stood for a 
moment looking at the cloud, but plainly not 
thinking of it. 

“ His daughter's name is Louisiana," he said, 
in an undertone. “ Louisiana ! Isn't that deli- 
cious ? " 

Suddenly, even as he spoke, a new idea oc- 
curred to him. 

“Why," he exclaimed, “your name is Louisej 
isn’t it? I think Olivia said so." 


70 


LOUISIANA. 


Yes/* she answered, my name is Louise.*’ 
How should you have liked it,** he inquiredj 
absent-mindedly, ‘‘ if it had been Louisiana ? ** 

She answered him with a hard coolness which 
it startled him afterward to remember. 

How would you have liked it ? ’* she said. 

They were driven back just then by the rain, 
which began to beat in upon their end of the 
porch. They were obliged to return to Olivia 
and Mr. Rogers, who were engaged in an ani- 
mated conversation. 

The fact was that, in her momentary excite- 
ment, Olivia had plunged into conversation as a 
refuge. She had suddenly poured forth a stream 
of remark and query which had the effect of spur- 
ring up her companion to a like exhibition of 
frankness. He had been asking questions, too. 

‘‘ She*s ben tellin* me,** he said, as Ferrol ap- 
proached, thet you*re a littery man, an* write 
fur the papers — novel-stories, an* pomes an* things. 
I never seen one before — not as I know on.** 

I wonder why not ! ** remarked Ferrol. We 
are plentiful enough.** 

‘‘ Air ye now ? ** he asked reflectively. “ I had 
an idee thar was only one on ye now an* ag*in-^ 
jest now an* ag*in.** 

He paused there to shake his head. 


*^SHE AINT YERE:^ 


71 


IVe often wondered how ye could do it/’ he 
said, ‘‘/couldn’t. Thar’s some as thinks they 
could if they tried, but I wa’n’t never thataway — 
I wa’n’t never thataway. I haint no idee I could 
do it, not if I tried ever so. Seems to me,” he 
went on, with the air of making an announcement 
of so novel a nature that he must present it mod- 
estly, “seems to me, now, as if them as does it 
must hev a kinder gift fur it, now. Lord ! I 
couldn’t write a novel. I wouldn’t know whar to 
begin.” 

“ It is difficult to decide where,” said Ferrol. 

He did not smile at all. His manner was per- 
fect — so full of interest, indeed, that Mr. Rogers 
quite warmed and expanded under it. 

“The scenes on ’em all, now, bein’ mostly laid 
in Bagdad, would be agin me, if nothin’ else war,” 
he proceeded. 

“Being laid ?’^ queried Ferrol. 

“ In Bagdad or — wa-al, furrin parts tharabouts. 
Ye see I couldn’t tell nothin’ much about no place 
but North Ca’liny, an’ folks wouldn’t buy it.” 

“ But why not ? ” exclaimed Ferrol. 

“Why, Lord bless ye!” he said, hilariously, 

they’d know it wa’n’t true. They’d say in a 
minnit : ‘ Why, thar’s thet fool Rogers ben a 
writin’ a pack o’ lies thet aint a word on it true. 


^2 


LOUISIANA. 


Thar aint no cas-tles in Hamilton County, an* 
thar aint no folks like these yere. It just aint 
so ! ' I 'lowed thet thar was the reason the novel- 
writers allers writ about things a-happenin' in Bag- 
dad. Ye kin say most anythin' ye like about Bag- 
dad an' no one cayn't contradict ye." 

don't seem to remember many novels of— 
of that particular description," remarked Ferrol, in 
a rather low voice. ‘‘ Perhaps my memory " 

‘^Ye don't?" he queried, in much surprise. 

Waal now, jest you notice an’ see if it aint so. 
I haint read many novels myself. I haint read 
but one " 

'^Oh!" interposed Ferrol. ‘‘And it was a 
story of life in Bagdad." 

“Yes; an' I've heard tell of others as was the 
same. Hance Claiborn, now, he was a-tellen me 
of one." 

He checked himself to speak to the negro wo- 
man who had presented herself at a room door. 

“We're a-comin', Nancy," he said, with an air 
of good-fellowship. “ Now, ladies an' gentlemen," 
he added, rising from his chair, “ walk in an’ have 
some supper." 

Ferrol and Olivia rose with some hesitation. 

“ You are very kind," they said. “ We did not 
intend to give you trouble." 


*^SHE AINT YERE: 


73 


Trouble ! he replied, as if scarcely compre- 
hending. “This yere aint no trouble. Ye haint 
ben in North Ca'liny before, hev ye ? '' he contin- 
ued, good-naturedly. We’re bound to hev ye 
eat, if ye stay with us long enough. We wouldn’t 
let ye go ’way without eatin’, bless ye. We aint 
that kind. Walk straight in.” 

He led them into a long, low room, half kitch- 
en, half dining-room. It was not so ugly as 
the room of state, because it was entirely un- 
adorned. Its ceiled walls were painted brown 
and stained with many a winter’s smoke. The 
pine table was spread with a clean homespun 
cloth and heaped with well-cooked, appetizing 
food. 

“ If ye can put up with country fare, ye’ll not 
find it so bad,” said the host. Nancy prides 
herself on her way o’ doin’ things.” 

There never was more kindly hospitality, Ferrol 
thought. The simple generosity which made 
them favored guests at once warmed and touched 
him. He glanced across at Louisiana to see if 
she was not as much pleased as he was himself. 
But the food upon her plate remained almost un- 
touched. There was a strange look on her face ; 
she was deadly pale and her downcast eyes shone 
under their lashes. She did not look at their host 


4 


74 


LOUISIANA. 


at all ; it struck Ferrol that she avoided looking 
at him with a strong effort. Her pallor made him 
anxious. 

** You are not well/' he said to her. ‘‘You do 
not look well at all." 

Their host started and turned toward her. 

“ Why, no ye aint ! " he exclaimed, quite trem- 
ulously. “ Lord, no ! Ye cay n’t be. Ye haint 
no color. What — what’s the trouble, Lou — Lord ! 
I was gwine to call ye Louisianny, an’ — she aint 
yere, Louisianny aint.’’ 

He ended with a nervous laugh. 

“ I’m used to takin’ a heap o’ care on her,’’ he 
said. “ I’ve lost ten on ’em, an’ she’s all that’s left 
me, an’ — an’ I think a heap on her. I — I wish 
she was yere. Ye musn’t git sick, ma’am.’’ 

The girl got up hurriedly. 

“ I am not sick, really,’’ she said. “ The thun- 
der — I have a little headache. I will go out on 
to the porch. It’s clearing up now. The fresh 
air will do me good.’’ 

The old man rose, too, with rather a flurried 
manner. 

“If Louisianny was yere,’’ he faltered, “she 
could give ye something to help ye. Camphire 
now — sperrits of camphire — let me git ye some.’’ 

“ No — no,’’ said the girl. “No, thank you." 


^•SHE AINT YEREy 75 

And she slipped out of the door and was gone. 

Mr. Rogers sat down again with a sigh. 

“ I wish she’d let me git her some,” he said, 
wistfully. ‘‘ I know how it is with young critters 
like that. They’re dele-cate,” anxiously. Lord, 
they’re dele-cate. They’d oughter hev’ their 
mothers round ’em. I know how it is with Lou- 
isianny.” 

A cloud seemed to settle upon him. He rubbed 
his grizzled chin with his hand again and again, 
glancing at the open door as he did it. It was 
evident that his heart was outside with the girl 
who was like Louisianny.” 


CHAPTER Vm. 


NOTHING HAS HURT YOU.’ 

The storm was quite over, and the sun was set- 
ting in flames of gold when the meal was ended 
and they went out on the porch again. Mr. Ro- 
gers had scarcely recovered himself, but he had 
made an effort to do so, and had so far succeeded 
as to begin to describe the nature of the one novel 
he had read. Still, he had rubbed his chin and 
kept his eye uneasily on the door all the time he 
had been talking. 

It was about a Frenchman,’' he said, seriously, 
an’ his name was — Frankoyse — F-r-a-n-c-o-i-s, 
Frankoyse. Thet thar’s a French name, aint it? 
Me an’ lanthy ’lowed it was common to the coun- 
try. It don’t belong yere, Frankoyse don’t, an’ 
it’s got a furrin sound.” 

It — yes, it is a French name,” assented 
Ferrol. 

A few minutes afterward they went out. Lou- 


NOTHING HAS HURT YOW 


77 


isiana stood at the end of the porch, leaning 
against a wooden pillar and twisting an arm 
around it. 

Are ye better ? Mr. Rogers asked. I am 
goin’ to 'tend to my stock, an' if ye aint, mebbe 

the camphire — sperrits of camphire " 

I don't need it," she answered. ‘‘ I am quite 
well." 

So he went away and left them, promising to 
return shortly and ‘‘gear up their critters" for 
them that they might go on their way. 

When he was gone, there was a silence of a few 
seconds which Ferrol could not exactly account for. 
Almost for the first time in his manhood, he did not 
know what to say. Gradually there had settled 
upon him the conviction that something had gone 
very wrong indeed, that there was something 
mysterious and complicated at work, that some- 
how he himself was involved, and that his posi- 
tion was at once a most singular and delicate one. 
It was several moments before he could decide 
that his best plan seemed to be to try to conceal 
his bewilderment and appear at ease. And, very 
naturally, the speech he chose to begin with was 
the most unlucky he could have hit upon. 

“ He is charming," he said. “ What a lovable 
old fellow ! What a delicious old fellow ! He 


78 


LOUISIANA, 


has been telling me about the novel. It is the 
the story of a Frenchman, and his name — try to 
guess his name/' 

But Louisiana did not try. 

** You couldn’t guess it,” he went on. It is 
better than all the rest. His name was — 
Frankoyse.” 

That instant she turned round. She was shak- 
ing all over like a leaf. 

Good heavens ! ” flashed through his mind. 
‘‘ This is a climax ! This is the real creature ! ” 
‘‘Don't laugh again!” she cried. “Don’t 
dare to laugh ! I wont bear it ! He is my 
father 1 ” 

For a second or so he had not the breath to 
speak. 

“ Your father ! ” he said, when he found his 
voice. “ Your father ! Yours ! 

“Yes,” she answered, “mine. This is my 
home. I have lived here all my life — my name is 
Louisiana. You have laughed at me too ! ” 

It was the real creature, indeed, whom he saw. 
She burst into passionate tears. 

“Do you think that I kept up this pretense 
to-day because I was ashamed of him ? ” she said 
Do you think I did it because I did not love 
him — and respect him — and think him better than 


^^NOTHING HAS HURT YOU: 


79 


all the rest of the world ? It was because I loved 
him so much that I did it — because I knew so well 
that you would say to each other that he was not 
like me — that he was rougher, and that it was a 
wonder I belonged to him. It is a wonder I be- 
long to him ! I am not worthy to kiss his shoes. 
I have been ashamed — I have been bad enough 
for that, but not bad enough to be ashamed of 
him. I thought at first it would be better to let 
you believe what you would — that it would soon 
be over, and we should never see each other 
again, but I did not think that I should have to 
sit by and see you laugh because he does not know 
the world as you do — because he has always lived 
his simple, good life in one simple, country place.’’ 

Ferrol had grown as pale as she was herself. 
He groaned aloud. 

Oh ! ” he cried, what shall I say to you ? 
For heaven’s sake try to understand that it is not 
at him I have laughed, but ” 

He has never been away from home,” she 
broke in. “ He has worked too hard to have 
time to read, and — ” she stopped and dropped 
her hands with a gesture of unutterable pride. 
“ Why should I tell you that ? ” she said. ‘‘ It 
sounds as if I were apologizing for him, and there 
is no need that I should.” 


8o 


LOUISIANA. 


I could understand/’ began Ferrol, — ‘‘ il 
I could realize ” 

“Ask your sister,” she replied. It was her 
plan. I— I ” (with a little sob) am only her ex- 
periment.” 

Olivia came forward, looking wholly subdued. 
Her eyes were wet, too. 

It is true,” she said. It is all my fault.” 

May I ask you to explain ? ” said Ferrol, 
rather sternly. I suppose some of this has been 
for my benefit.” 

‘‘ Don’t speak in that tone,” said Olivia. “ It 
is bad enough as it is. I — I never was so 
wretched in my life. I never dreamed of its 
turning out in this way. She was so pretty and 
gentle and quick to take a hint, and — I wanted to 
try the experiment — to see if you would guess at 
the truth. I — I had a theory, and I was so much 
interested that — I forgot to — to think of her very 
much. I did not think she would care.” 

Louisiana broke in. 

“Yes,” she said, her eyes bright with pain, 
“ she forgot. I was very fond of her, and I knew 
so very little that she forgot to think of me. I 
was only a kind of plaything — but I was too 
proud to remind her. I thought it would be 
soon over, and I knew how ignorant I was. I was 


*^NOTHING HAS HURT YOW^ 8l 

afraid to trust my feelings at first. I thought per- 
haps — it was vanity, and I ought to crush it down. 
I was very fond of her.*’ 

'‘Oh!” cried Olivia, piteously, "don’t say 
' was,’ Louise ! ” 

" Don’t say ' Louise,’ ” was the reply. " Say 
‘Louisiana.’ I am not ashamed of it now. I 
want Mr. Ferrol to hear it.” 

" I have nothing to say in self-defense,” 
Laurence replied, hopelessly. 

" There is nothing for any of us to say but 
good-by,” said Louisiana. " We shall never see 
each other again. It is all over between us. 
You will go your way and I shall go mine. I 
shall stay here to-night. You must drive back to 
the Springs without me. I ought never to have 
gone there.’" 

Laurence threw himself into a chair and sat 
shading his face with his hand. He stared from 
under it at the shining wet grass and leaves. 
Even yet he scarcely believed that all this was 
true. He felt as if he were walking in a dream. 
The worst of it was this desperate feeling that 
there was nothing for him to say. There was a 
long silence, but at last Louisiana left her place 
and came and stood before him. 

"I am going to meet my father,” she said. 

4 * 


82 


LOUISIANA. 


I persuaded him that I was only playing a joke. 
He thought it was one of my fancies, and he 
helped me out because I asked him to do it. I 
am going to tell him that I have told you the 
truth. He wont know why I did it. I will make 
it easy for you. I shall not see you again. Good- 
by.” 

FerroFs misery got the better of him. 

‘‘ I can't bear this ! " he cried, springing up. 

I can't, indeed." 

She drew back. 

‘‘Why not?" she said. “Nothing has hurt 

you.'' 

The simple coldness of her manner was very 
hard upon him, indeed. 

“You think I have no right to complain," he 
answered, “ and yet see how you send me away! 
You speak as if you did not intend to let me see 
you again " 

“ No," she interposed, “ you shall not see me 
again. Why should you ? Ask your sister to 
tell you how ignorant I am. She knows. Why 
should you come here ? There would always be 
as much to laugh at as there has been to-day. 
Go where you need not laugh. This is not the 
place for you. Good-by 1 " 

Then he knew he need say no more. She 


^^NOTHING HAS HURT YOU.^* 

3yoke with a child’s passion and with a woman’s 
proud obstinacy. Then she turned to Olivia. 
Ke was thrilled to the heart as he watched her 
while she did it. Her eyes were full of tears, but 
she had put both her hands behind her. 

Good-by,” she said. 

Olivia broke down altogether. 

** Is that the way you are going to say good- 
by ? ” she cried. I did not think you were so 
hard. If I had meant any harm — but I didn’t — 
and you look as if you never would forgive me.” 

‘‘ I may some time,” answered the girl. I 
don’t yet. I did not think I was so hard, either.” 

Her hands fell at her sides and she stood trem- 
bling a second. All at once she had broken down, 
too. 

‘‘I loved you,” she said; ‘‘but you did not 
love me.” 

And then she turned away and walked slowly 
into the house. 

It was almost half an hour before their host 
came to them with the news that their carriage 
was ready. 

He looked rather “ off color ” himself and wore 
a wearied air, but he was very uncommunicative. 

“ Louisianny ’lowed she’d go to bed an’ sleep 


84 


LOUISIANA. 


off her headache, instead of goin’ back to the 
Springs/' he said. ‘‘ I'll be thar in a day or two 
to 'tend to her bill an' the rest on it. I 'low the 
waters haint done her much good. She aint at 
herself rightly. I knowed she wasn't when she 
was so notionate this evenin'. She aint notionate 
when she's at herself." 

We are much indebted to you for your kind- 
ness/' said Ferrol, when he took the reins. 

‘‘Oh, thet aint nothin'. You're welcome. 
You'd hev hed a better time if Louisianny had 
been at herself. Good-by to ye. Ye'll hev plenty 
of moonlight to see ye home." 

Their long ride was a silent one. When they 
reached the end of it and Olivia had been helped 
out of the carriage and stood in the moonlight 
upon the deserted gallery, where she had stood 
with Louisiana in the morning, she looked very 
suitably miserable. 

“Laurence," she said, “I don't exactly see 
why you should feel so very severe about it. 
I am sure I am as abject as any one could wish." 

He stood a moment in silence looking absently 
out on the moonlight-flooded lawn. Everything 
was still and wore an air of desolation. 

“We won't talk about it," he said, at last, 

but you have done me an ill-turn, Olivia." 


CHAPTER IX, 


don't ye, louisianny?” 

As HE said it, Louisiana was at home in the 
house-room, sitting on a low chair at her father’s 
knee and looking into the fire. She had not gone 
to bed. When he returned to the house her father 
had found her sitting here, and she had not left her 
place since. A wood fire had been lighted because 
the mountain air was cool after the rains, and she 
seemed to like to sit and watch it and think. 

Mr. Rogers himself was in a thoughtful mood. 
After leaving his departing guests he had settled 
down with some deliberation. He had closed the 
doors and brought forward his favorite wooden- 
backed, split-seated chair. Then he had seated 
himself, and drawing forth his twist of tobacco 
had cut off a goodly chaw.” He moved slowly 
and wore a serious and somewhat abstracted air. 
Afterward he tilted backward a little, crossed his 
legs, and proceeded to ruminate. 


86 


LOUISIANA, 


Louisianny/* he said, Louisianny, Fd like 
to hear the rights of it/* 

She answered him in a low voice. 

‘‘It is not worth telling,** she said. “ It was a 
very poor joke, after all.** 

He gave her a quick side glance, rubbing his 
crossed legs slowly. 

“ Was it ? ** he remarked. “ A poor one, after 
all ? Why, thet*s bad.** 

The quiet patience of his face was a study. He 
went on rubbing his leg even more slowly than 
before. 

“Thet*s bad,** he said again. “Now, what 
d*ye think was the trouble, Louisianny ?** 

“I made a mistake/* she answered. “That 
was all.** 

Suddenly she turned to him and laid her folded 
arms on his knee and her face upon them, sobbing. 

“I oughtn*t to have gone,** she cried. “I 
ought to have stayed at home with you, father.** 
His face flushed, and he was obliged to relieve 
his feelings by expectorating into the fire. 

“ Louisianny,** he said, “ Td like to ask ye one 
question. Was thar anybody thar as didn’t — • 
well, as didn*t show ye respect — as was slighty or 
free or — or onconsiderate ? Fur instants, any 
littery man — jest for instants, now ? ** 


^^DON^T YE, LOUISIANNYf^'^ 87 

No, no ! ** she answered. They were very 
kind to me always.*' 

Don't be afeared to tell me, Louisianny," he 
put it to her. I only said ‘ fur instants,' havin' 
heern as littery men was sometimes — now an' 
again — thataway — now an' ag'in." 

They were very good to me," she repeated, 
always." 

If they was," he returned, I'm glad of it. 
Fm a-gittin' old, Louisianny, an' I haint much 
health — dispepsy's what tells on a man," he went 
on deliberately. “ But if thar'd a-bin any one as 
hed done it. I'd hev hed to settle it with him — 
I'd hev hed to hev settled it with him — liver or no 
liver." * 

He put his hand on her head and gave it a slow 
little rub, the wrong way, but tenderly. 

I aint goin' to ask ye no more questions," ne 
said, exceptin' one. Is thar anything ye'd like 
to hev done in the house — in the parlor, for in- 
stants, now — s'posin' we was to say in the parlor." 

‘‘ No, no," she cried. Let it stay as it is! 
Let it all stay as it is ! " 

Wa-al," he said, meditatively, ye know thar 
aint no reason why it should, Louisianny, if ye'd 
like to hev it fixed up more or different. If ye'd 
like a new paper — say a floweryer one — or a new 


88 


LOUISIANA. 


set of cheers an’ things. Up to Lawyer Hoskin’s 
I seen ’em with red seats to ’em, an’ seemed like 
they did set things off sorter. If ye’d like to hev 
some, thar aint no reason why ye shouldn’t. 
Things has gone purty well with me, an’ — an’ thar 
aint none left but you, honey. Lord ! ” he added, 
in a queer burst of tenderness. ‘‘ Why shouldn’t 
ye hev things if ye want ’em ? ” 

I don’t want them,” she protested. I want 
nothing but you.” 

For a moment there was a dead silence. He 
kept his eyes fixed on the fire. He seemed to be 
turning something over in his mind. But at last 
he spoke : 

Don’t ye, Louisianny ? ” he said. 

No,” she answered. ‘‘ Nothing.” 

And she drew his hand under her cheek and 
kissed it. 

He took it very quietly. 

'‘Ye’ve got a kind heart, Louisianny,” he said. 
“Young folks gin’rally has, I think. It’s sorter 
nat’ral, but Lord ! thar’s other things besides us 
old folks, an’ it’s nat’ral as ye’d want ’em. Thar’s 
things as kin be altered, an’ thar’s things as cayn’t. 
Let’s alter them as kin. If ye’d like a cupoly put 
on the house, or, say a coat of yaller-buflf paint — 
Sawyer’s new house is yaller buff, an’ it’s mighty 


DON'T YE, LOUISIANNVr 


89 


showy ; or a organ or a pianny, or more dressing 
ye shall have 'em. Them's things as it aint too 
late to set right, an' ye shall hev 'em." 

But she only cried the more in a soft, hushed 
way. 

Oh, don't be so good to me,'* she said. 

Don't be so good and kind." 

He went on as quietly as before. 

‘‘ If — fur instants — it was me as was to be 
altered, Louisianny, I'm afeared — I'm afeared we 
couldn't do it. I'm afeared as I've been let run 
too long — jest to put it that way. We mought 
hev done it if we'd hev begun airlier — say forty or 
fifty year back — but I'm afeared we couldn't do it 
now. Not as I wouldn't be willin' — I wouldn't 
hev a thing agin it, an' I'd try my best — but it's 
late. Thar's whar it is. If it was me as hed to 
be altered — made more moderner, an’ to know 
more, an' to hev more style — I'm afeared thar'd 
be a heap o' trouble. Style didn't never seem to 
come nat'ral to me, somehow. I'm one o' them 
things as cayn't be altered. Let's alter them as 
kin." 

I don't want you altered," she protested. 

Oh ! why should I, when you are such a good 
father — such a dear father ! " 

And there was a little silence again, and at the 


90 


LOUISIANA. 


end of it he said, in a gentle, forbearing voice, just 
as he had said before : 

Don’t ye, Louisianny ? ” 

They sat silent again for some time afterward — • 
indeed, but little more was said until they sepa- 
rated for the night. Then, when she kissed him 
and clung for a moment round his neck, he sud- 
denly roused himself from his prolonged reverie. 

“ Lord ! ” he said, quite cheerfully, it caynt 
last long, at the longest, arter all — an* you’re 
young yet, you’re young.” 

What can’t last long ? ” she asked, timidly. 

He looked into her eyes and smiled. 

Nothin’,” he answered, nothin’ caynt. 
Nothin’ don’t — an’ you’re young.’' 

And he was so far moved by his secret thought 
that he smoothed her hair from her forehead the 
wrong way again with a light touch, before he let 
her go. 


CHAPTER X. 

THE GREAT WORLD. 

The next morning he went to the Springs, 
ril go an’ settle up and bring ye your trunk 
an’ things,” he said. ‘‘ Mebbe I mayn’t git back 
till to-morrer, so don’t ye be oneasy. Ef I feel 
tired when I git thar, I’ll stay overnight.” 

She did not think it likely he would stay. She 
had never known him to remain away from home 
during a night unless he had been compelled to 
do so by business. He had always been too 
childishly fond of his home to be happy away 
from it. He liked the routine he had been used 
to through forty years, the rising at daylight, the 
regular common duties he assumed as his share, 
his own seat on the hearth or porch and at table. 

Folks may be clever enough,” he used to say. 
“ They air clever, as a rule — but it don’t come 
nat’ral to be away. Thar aint nothin’ like home 
an’ home ways.” 


92 


LOUISIANA. 


But he did not return that night, or even th% 
next morning. It was dusk the next evening be- 
fore Louisiana heard the buggy wheels on the 
road. 

She had been sitting on the porch and rose to 
greet him when he drove up and descended from 
his conveyence rather stiffly. 

Ye wasn’t oneasy, was ye ? ” he asked. 

No,” she answered ; only it seemed strange 
to know you were away.” 

I haint done it but three times since me an’ 
lanthy was married,” he said. ‘‘ Two o’ them 
times was Conference to Barnsville, an’ one was 
when Marcelly died.” 

When he mounted the porch steps he looked up 
at her with a smile on his weather-beaten face. 

‘‘Was ye lonesome?” he asked. “I bet ye 
was.” 

“ A little,” she replied. “ Not very.” 

She gave him his chair against the wooden pil- 
lar, and watched him as he tilted back and bal- 
anced himself on its back legs. She saw some- 
thing new and disturbed in his face and manner. 
It was as if the bit of outside life he had seen had 
left temporary traces upon him. She wondered 
very much how it had impressed him and what 
he thinking about. 


THE GEE AT WORLD. 


93 


And after a short time he told her. 

Ye must be lonesome/' he said, arter stay- 
in' down thar. It's nat'ral. A body don't know 
until they see it theirselves. It's gay thar. Lord, 
yes ! it's gay, an' what suits young folks is to be 
gay." 

‘‘ Some of the people who were there did not 
think it was gay," Louisiana said, a little listlessly. 
‘ ‘ They were used to gayer places and they often 
called it dull, but it seemed very gay to me." 

‘‘ I shouldn't want it no gayer, myself," he re- 
turned, seriously. ‘‘Not if I was young folks. 
Thar must hev bin three hundred on 'em in thet 
thar dinin'-room. The names o' the vittles writ 
down on paper to pick an' choose from, an' fifty 
or sixty waiters flyin' round. An' the dressin' ! 
I sot an' watched 'em as they come in. I sot an' 
watched 'em all day. Thar was a heap o’ cur'osi- 
ties in the way of dressin' I never seen before. I 
I went into the dancin'-room at night, too, an' sot 
thar a spell an' watched 'em. They played a 
play. Some on 'em put little caps an' aperns on, 
an' rosettes an' fixin's. They sorter danced in it, 
an' they hed music while they was doin' it. It 
was purty, too, if a body could hev follered it 
out." 

“ It is a dance they call the German," said Lou^ 


94 


LOUISIANA. 


isiana, remembering with a pang the first night 
she had seen it, as she sat at her new friend's 
side. 

'' German, is it?" he said, with evident satis- 
faction at making the discovery. "‘Waal now, I 
ain't surprised. It hed a kinder Dutch look to 
me — kinder Dutch an' furrin." 

Just then Nancy announced that his supper was 
ready, and he went in, but on the threshold he 
stopped and spoke again : 

“Them folks as was here," he said, “they'd 
gone. They started the next mornin' arter they 
was here. They live up North somewhars, an' 
they've went thar." 

After he had gone in, Louisiana sat still for a 
little while. The moon was rising and she watched 
it until it climbed above the tree-tops and shone 
bright and clear. Then one desperate little sob 
broke from her — only one, for she choked the 
next in its birth, and got up and turned toward 
the house and the room in which the kerosene 
lamp burned on the supper table. 

“ I’ll go an' talk to him," she said. “ He likes 
to have me with him, and it will be better than 
sitting here. " 

She went in and sat near him, resting her elbows 


THE GREAT WORLD. 


95 


upon the table and her chin on her hands, and 
tried to begin to talk. But it was not very easy. 
She found that she had a tendency to fall back in 
long silent pauses, in which she simply looked at 
him with sad, tender eyes. 

‘‘ I stopped at Casey's as I came on," he said, 
at last. “ Thet thar was one thing as made me 
late. Thar's — thar's somethin' I hed on my mind 
fur him to do fur me." 

‘‘ For Casey to do ? " she said. 

He poured his coffee into his saucer and an- 
swered with a heavy effort at speaking unconcern^ 
edly. 

I'm agoin' to hev him fix the house," he said. 

She was going to ask him what he meant to 
havQ done, but he did not give her time. 

lanthy an' me," he said, “ we‘d useder say 
we'd do it sometime, an' I'm agoin' to do it now. 
The rooms, now, they're low — whar they're not 
to say small, they're low an' — an' old-timey. 
Thar aint no style to 'em. Them rooms to the 
Springs, now, they've got style to 'em. An' 
rooms kin be altered easy enough." 

He drank his coffee slowly, set his saucer dov/n 
and went on with the same serious air of having 
broached an ordinary subject. 

Goin' to the Springs has sorter started me 


96 


LOUISIANA, 


off/* he said. Seein* things different does start 
a man off. Casey an* his men*ll be here Mom 
day.** 

It seems so — sudden/* Louisiana said. She 
gave a slow, wondering glance at the old smoke- 
stained room. “ I can hardly fancy it looking any 
other way than this. It wont be the same place 
at all.** 

He glanced around, too, with a start. His 
glance was hurried and nervous. 

Why, no,** he said, it wont, but — it*ll be 
stylisher. It*ll be kinder onfamiFar at first, but I 
dessay we shall get used to it — an* it*ll be stylisher. 
An* style — whar thar*s young folks, thet*s what*s 
wanted — style.** 

She was so puzzled by his manner that she sat 
regarding him with wonder. But he went on 
talking steadily about his plans until the meal 
was over. He talked of them when they went 
back to the porch together and sat in the moon- 
light. He scarcely gave her an opportunity to 
speak. Once or twice the idea vaguely occurred 
to her that for some reason he did not want her 
to talk. It was a relief to her only to be called 
upon to listen, but still she was puzzled. 

** When we git fixed up,** he said, '‘ye kin hev 
your friends yere. Thar*s them folks, now, as 


THE GREAT WORLD. 


97 


was yere the other day from the Springs— when 
weVe fixed up ye mought invite *em — next sum- 
mer, fur instants. Like as not I shall be away 
myself an* — ye*d hev room a plenty. Ye wouldn*t 
need me, ye see. An*, Lord ! how it*d serprise 
*em to come an* find ye all fixed.** 

I should never ask them,** she cried, impetu- 
ously. And — they wouldn*t come if I did.** 

Mebbe they would,** he responded, gravely, 
“ if ye was fixed up.** 

I don*t want them,** she said, passionately. 

Let them keep their place. I don*t want them.** 

‘‘ Don*t ye,** he said, in his quiet voice. 

Don*t ye, Louisianny ? ** 

And he seemed to sink into a reverie and did 
not speak again for quite a long time. 

5 


CHAPTER XL 


A RUSTY NAIL. 

On Monday Casey and his men came. Loui- 
siana and her father were at breakfast when they 
struck their first blow at the end of the house 
which was to be renovated first. 

The old man, hearing it, started violently — so 
violently that he almost upset the coffee at his 
elbow. 

He laughed a tremulous sort of laugh. 

** Why, Fm narvous ! he said. “ Now, jest to 
think o' me a-bein' narvous ! " 

I suppose," said Louisiana, I am nervous as 
well. It made me start too. It had such a strange 
sound." 

‘‘Waal, now," he answered, “come to think 
on it, it hed — sorter. Seems like it wasn't sca'cely 
nat'ral. P'r'aps that's it." 

Neither of them ate much breakfast, and when 
the meal was over they went out together to look 


A RUSTY NAIL. 


99 


at the workmen. They were very busy tearing 
off weather-boarding and wrenching out nails. 
Louisiana watched them with regretful eyes. In 
secret she was wishing that the low ceilings and 
painted walls might remain as they were. She 
had known them so long. 

** I am afraid he is doing it to please me/* she 
thought. ‘‘ He does not believe me when I say 
I don't want it altered. He would never have had 
it done for himself." 

Her father had seated himself on a pile of plank. 
He was rubbing his crossed leg as usual, but his 
hand trembled slightly. 

I druv them nails in myself," he said. Ian- 
thy wasn't but nineteen. She'd set yere an' watch 
me. It was two or three months arter we was 
married. She was mighty proud on it when it 
was all done. Little Tom he was born in thet 
thar room. The rest on 'em was born in the front 
room, 'n' they all died thar. lanthy she died thar. 
I'd useder think I should " 

He stopped and glanced suddenly at Louisiana. 
He pulled himself up and smiled. 

‘‘Ye aint in the notion o' hevin' the cupoly," 
he said. “ We kin hev it as soon as not — 'n* 
seems ter me thar's a heap o' style to 'em." 


lOO 


LOUISIANA. 


Anything that pleases you will please me, 
father/' she said. 

He gave her a mild, cheerful look. 

‘'Ye don't take much int’russ in it yet, do ye ? *' 
he said. “ But ye will when it gits along kinder. 
Lord ! ye'll be as impatient as lanthy an' me was, 
when it gits along." 

She tried to think she would, but without very 
much success. She lingered about for a while, 
and at last went to her own room at the other end 
of the house and shut herself in. 

Her trunk had been carried upstairs and set in 
its old place behind the door. She opened it and 
began to drag out the dresses and other adorn- 
ments she had taken with her to the Springs. 
There was the blue muslin. She threw it on the 
floor and dropped beside it, half sitting, half kneel- 
ing. She laughed quite savagely. 

“ I thought it was very nice when I made it," 
she said. “ I wonder how she would like to wear 
it ? " She pulled out one thing after another until 
the floor around her was strewn. Then she got up 
and left them, and ran to the bed and threw herself 
into a chair beside it, hiding her face in the pillow 

“ Oh, how dull it is, and how lonely ! " she said 
“ What shall I do ? What shall I do ? " 


A RUSTY NAIL. 


lOI 


And while she sobbed she heard the blows upon 
the boards below. 

Before she went down-stairs she replaced the 
things she had taken from the trunk. She packed 
them away neatly, and, having done it, turned the 
key upon them. 

‘‘ Father,'’ she said, at dinner, there are some 
things upstairs I want to send to Cousin Jenny. 
I have done with them, and I think she'd like to 
have them.*' 

** Dresses an' things, Louisianny ? " he said. 

Yes," she answered. I shall not need them 
any more. I — don't care for them." 

Don't " he began, but stopped short, and, 

lifting his glass, swallowed the rest of the sentence 
in a large glass of milk. 

‘‘ I'll tell Leander to send fer it," he said after- 
ward. ^'Jenny'll be real sot up, I reckon. Her 
pappy bein' so onfort'nit, she don't git much." 

He ate scarcely more dinner than breakfast, and 
spent the afternoon in wandering here and there 
among the workmen. Sometimes he talked to 
them, and sometimes sat on his pile of plank and 
watched them in silence. Once, when no one was 
looking, he stooped down and picked up a rusty 
nail which had fallen from its place in a piece of 
board. After holding it in his hand for a little he 


102 


LOUISIANA. 


furtively thrust it into his pocket, and seemed to 
experience a sense of relief after he had done it. 

‘‘Ye don't do nothin' toward helpin' us, Uncle 
Elbert," said one of the young men. (Every 
youngster within ten miles knew him as “ Uncle 
Elbert.") “Ye aint as smart as ye was when last 
ye built, air ye ? " 

“ No, boys," he answered, “ I ain’t. Thet’s so 
I aint as smart, an'," he added, rather hurriedly, 
“ it'd sorter go agin me to holp ye at what yeVe 
doin' now. Not as I don’t think it’s time it was 
done, but — it'd sorter go ag’in me." 

When Louisiana entered the house-room at 
dusk, she found him sitting by the fire, his body 
drooping forward, his head resting listlessly on his 
hand. 

“ I've got a touch o' dyspepsy, Louisianny," he 
said, “ an’ the knockin' hes kinder giv me a head- 
ache. I'll go to bed airly." 


CHAPTER XII. 

MEBBE.’' 

She had been so full of her own sharp pain and 
humiliation during the first few days that perhaps 
she had not been so quick to see as she would 
otherwise have been, but the time soon came 
when she awakened to a bewildered sense of new 
and strange trouble. She scarcely knew when it 
was that she first began to fancy that some change 
had taken place in her father. It was a change 
she could not comprehend when she recognized 
its presence. It was no alteration of his old, slow, 
quiet faithfulness to her. He had never been so 
faithfully tender. The first thing which awakened 
her thought of change was his redoubled tender- 
ness. She found that he watched her constantly, 
in a patient, anxious way. When they were to- 
gether she often discovered that he kept his eyes 
fixed upon her when he thought she was not aware 
of his gaze. He seemed reluctant to leave her 


104 


LOUISIANA. 


alone, and continually managed to be near her, 
and yet it grew upon her at last that the old, 
homely good-fellowship between them had some- 
how been broken in upon, and existed no longer. 
It was not that he loved her any less — she was 
sure of that ; but she had lost something, without 
knowing when or how she had lost it, or even ex- 
actly what it was. But his anxiety to please her 
grew day by day. He hurried the men who were 
at work upon the house. 

Louisianny, she’ll enjoy it when it’s done,” 
he said to them. Hurry up, boys, an’ do yer 
plum best.” 

She had been at home about two weeks when 
he began to drive over to the nearest depot every 
day at ''train time.” It was about three miles 
distant, and he went over for several days in his 
spring wagon. At first he said nothing of his rea- 
son for making the journey, but one morning, as 
he stood at his horses’ heads, he said to Louisiana, 
without turning to look at her, and affecting to be 
very busy with some portion of the harness : 

" I’ve ben expectin’ of some things fer a day or 
so, an’ they haint come. I wasn’t sure when I 
oughter to look fer ’em — mebbe I’ve ben lookin’ 
too soon — fer they haint come yet.” 

" Where were they to come from ? ” she asked 


^*mebbe: 


los 

** From — from New York City/* 

‘‘From New York?** she echoed, trying to 
show an interest. “ I did not know you sent 
there, father.** 

“I haint never done it afore,** he answered. 
“ These yere things — mebbe they’ll come to-day, 
an* then ye*ll see *em.** 

She asked no further questions, fancying that 
he had been buying some adornments for the new 
rooms which were to be a surprise for her. After 
he had gone away she thought a little sadly of 
his kindness to her, and her unworthiness of it. 
At noon he came back and brought his prize with 
him. 

He drove up slowly with it behind him in the 
wagon — a large, shining, new trunk — quite as 
big and ponderous as any she had seen at the 
Springs. 

He got down and came up to her as she stood 
on the porch. He put his hand on her shoulder. 

“ ril hev *em took in an* ye kin look at *em,** 
he said. “ It*s some new things ye was a-need- 
in*.** 

She began to guess dimly at what he meant, 
but she followed the trunk into the house without 
speaking. When they set it down she stood 
near while her father fumbled for the key and 


LOUISIANA. 


Io6 

found it, turned it in the lock and threw back the 
lid. 

‘‘They're some things ye was a-needin*," he 
said. “ I hope ye'll like 'em, honey." 

She did not know what it was in his voice, or 
his face, or his simple manner that moved her so, 
but she did not look at what he had brought at 
all — she ran to him and caught his arm, dropped 
her face on it, and burst into tears. 

“ Father — father ! " she cried. “ Oh, father ! " 

“Look at ’em, Louisianny," he persisted, gem 
tly, “ an' see if they suit ye. Thar aint no reason 
to cry, honey." 

The words checked her and made her feel un- 
certain and bewildered again. She stopped cry- 
ing and looked up at him, wondering if her emo- 
tion troubled him, but he did not meet her eye, 
and only seemed anxious that she should see what 
he had brought. 

“ I didn't tell ye all I hed in my mind when I 
went to the Springs,” he said. “ I hed a notion 
I'd like to see fer myself how things was. I 
knowed ye'd hev an idee thet ye couldn't ask me 
fer the kind o' things ye wanted, an' I knowed 
I knowed nothin' about what they was, so I ses 
to myself, ‘ I'll go an' stay a day an' watch and 
find out.' An' I went, an' I found out. Tha/ 


^^mebbe: 


107 


was a young woman thar as was dressed purtief 
than any of ’em. An' she was clever an* friendly, 
an' I managed it so we got a-talkin'. She hed on 
a dress that took my fancy. It was mighty black 
an' thick — ye know it was cold after the rains — an' 
when we was talkin' I asked her if she mind a- 
tellin' me the name of it an' whar she’d bought it 
An' she laughed some, an' said it was velvet, an' 
she’d got it to some store in New York City, 
An' I asked her if she'd write it down ; I'd a little 
gal at home I wanted a dress off'n it fer — an' then, 
someways, we warmed up, an' I ses to her, ‘ She 
aint like me. If ye could see her ye'd never guess 
we was kin.' She hadn't never seen ye. She 
come the night ye left, but when I told her more 
about ye, she ses, ‘ I think I've heern on her. I 
heern she was very pretty. ’ An’ I told her what 
I'd hed in my mind, an' it seemed like it took her 
fancy, an' she told me to get a paper an' pencil 
an' she'd tell me what to send fer an' whar to send. 
An' I sent fer 'em, an' thar they air." 

She could not tell him that they were things not 
fit for her to wear. She looked at the rolls of silk 
and the laces and feminine extras with a bewil- 
dered feeling. 

They are beautiful things,” she said. I 
never thought of having such things for my owa 


io8 


LOUISIANA. 


** Thar’s no reason why ye shouldn’t hev ’em/ 
he said. ‘‘ Fd oughter hev thought of ’em afore. 
Do they suit ye, Louisianny ? ” 

I should be very hard to please if they didn’t, 
she answered. ‘‘ They are only too beautiful for 
—a girl like me.” 

‘‘They cayn’t be that,” he said, gravely. ‘'I 
didn’t see none no handsomer than you to the 
Springs, Louisianny, an’ I ses to the lady as writ 
it all down fer me, I ses, ' What I want is fer her 
to hev what the best on ’em hev. I don’t want 
nothin’ no less than what she’d like to hev if she’d 
ben raised in New York or Philadelphy City. Thar 
aint no reason why she shouldn’t hev it. Out of 
eleven she’s all that’s left, an’ she desarves it all. 
She’s young an* handsome, and she desarves it 
all.’” 

What did she say to that ? ” Louisiana asked. 

He hesitated a moment before answering. 

She looked at me kinder queer fer a minnit,” 
he replied at length. ‘‘An’ then she ses, ‘She’d 
oughter be a very happy gal,’ ses she, ‘ with such 
a father,’ an’ I ses, ‘ I ’low she is — mebbe.’ ” 

“ Only maybe ? ” said the girl, “ only maybe, 
father ? ” 

She dropped the roll of silk she had been hold 
ing and went to him. She put her hand on his 


*^mebbe: 


109 


arm again and shook it a little, laughing in the 
same feverish fashion as when she had gone out 
to him on the porch on the day of her return. 
She had suddenly flushed up, and her eyes shone 
as he had seen them then. 

Only maybe,’' she said. ‘‘ Why should I 
be unhappy ? There’s no reason. Look at me, 
with my fine house and my new things ! There 
isn’t any one happier in the world ! There is 
nothing left for me to wish for. I have got too 
much ! ” 

A new mood seemed to have taken possession 
of her all at once. She scarcely gave him a chance 
to speak. She drew him to the trunk’s side, and 
made him stand near while she took the things 
out one by one. She exclaimed and laughed over 
them as she drew them forth. She held the dress 
materials up to her waist and neck to see how the 
colors became her ; she tried on laces and sacques 
and furbelows and the hats which were said to 
have come from Paris. 

What will they say when they see me at meet- 
ing in them?” she said. ‘‘Brother Horner will 
forget his sermons. There never were such thing? 
in Bowersville before. I am almost afraid th(?) 
will think I am putting on airs.” 


no 


LOUISIANA, 


When she reached a box of long kid gloves at 
the bottom, she burst into such a shrill laugh that 
her father was startled. There was a tone of false 
exhilaration about her which was not what he had 
expected. 

See ! she cried, holding one of the longest 
pairs up, eighteen buttons ! And cream color ! 
I can wear them with the cream-colored silk and 
cashmere at — at a festival ! 

When she had looked at everything, the rag 
carpet was strewn with her riches, — with fashion- 
able dress materials, with rich and delicate colors, 
with a hundred feminine and pretty whims. 

** How could I help but be happy ? ” she said. 

I am like a queen. I don’t suppose queens have 
very much more, though we don’t know much 
about queens, do we ? ” 

She hung round her father’s neck and kissed 
him in a fervent, excited way. 

‘'You good old father! ” she said, “ you sweet 
old father ! ” 

He took one of her soft, supple hands and held 
it between both his brown and horny ones. 

“ Louisianny,” he said, “ I 'low to make ye hap- 
py ; ef the Lord haint nothin’ agin it, I 'low to do 
itr’ 


^^mebbe: 


III 


He went out after that, and left her alone to set 
her things to rights ; but when he had gone and 
closed the door, she did not touch them. She 
threw herself down flat upon the floor in the midst 
of them, her slender arms flung out, her eyes wide 
open and wild and dry* 


CHAPTER XIII. 


A NEW PLAN. 

At last the day came when the house was fin- 
ished and stood big and freshly painted and bare 
in the sun. Late one afternoon in the Indian 
summer, Casey and his men, having bestowed 
their last touches, collected their belongings and 
went away, leaving it a lasting monument to their 
ability. Inside, instead of the low ceilings, and 
painted wooden walls, there were high rooms and 
plaster and modern papering ; outside, instead of 
the variegated piazza, was a substantial portico. 
The whole had been painted a warm gray, and 
Casey considered his job a neat one and was proud 
of it. When they were all gone Louisiana went 
out into the front yard to look at it. She stood 
in the grass and leaned against an apple-tree. It 
was near sunset, and both trees and grass were 
touched with a yellow glow so deep and mellow 
that it was almost a golden haze. Now that th<j 


A NEW PLAN 


I13 

long-continued hammering and sawing was at an 
end and all traces of its accompaniments removed, 
the stillness seemed intense. There was not a 
breath of wind stirring, or the piping of a bird to 
be heard. The girl clasped her slender arms about 
the tree's trunk and rested her cheek against the 
rough bark. She looked up piteously. 

I must try to get used to it," she said. ‘‘ It is 
very much nicer — and I must try to get used to 
it." 

But the strangeness of it was very hard on her 
at first. When she looked at it she had a startled 
feeling — as if when she had expected to see an old 
friend she had found herself suddenly face to face 
with a stranger. 

Her father had gone to Bowersville early in the 
day, and she had been expecting his return for an 
hour or so. She left her place by the tree at length 
and went to the fence to watch for his coming down 
the road. But she waited in vain so long that she 
got tired again and wandered back to the house 
and around to the back to where a new barn and 
stable had been built, painted and ornamented in 
accordance with the most novel designs. There 
was no other such barn or stable in the country, 
and their fame was already wide-spread and of an 
enviable nature. 


LOUISIANA. 


1 14 

As she approached these buildings Louisiana 
glanced up and uttered an exclamation. Her 
father was sitting upon the door-sill of the barn, 
and his horse was turned loose to graze upon the 
grass before him. 

Father/’ the girl cried, I have been waiting 
for you. I thought you had not come.” 

IVe been yere a right smart while, Louisian- 
ny,” he answered. ‘‘Ye wasn’t ’round when I 
come, an’ so ye didn’t see me, I reckon.” 

He was pale, and spoke at first heavily and as 
if with an effort, but almost instantly he bright- 
ened. 

“ I’ve jest ben a-settin’ yere a-steddyin’,” he 
said. “A man wants to see it a few times an’ 
take it sorter gradual afore he kin do it jestice. 
A-lookin’ at it from yere, now,” with a wide sweep 
of his hand toward the improvements, “ ye kin see 
how much style thar is to it. Seems to me thet 
the — the mountains now, they look better. It — 
waal it kinder sets ’em off — it kinder sets ’em off.” 

“ It is very much prettier,” she answered. 

“ Lord, yes ! Thar aint no comparison. I was 
jest a-settin’ thinkin’ thet any one thet’d seed it as 
it was afore they’d not know it. lanthy, fer in- 
stants — lanthy she wouldn’t sca’cely know it was 
home — thar’s so much style to it.” 


A NEW PLAN. 


II5 

He suddenly stopped and rested against the 
door-lintel. He was pale again, though he kept 
up a stout air of good cheer. 

Lord ! he said, after a little pause, it’s a 
heap stylisher ! ’’ 

Presently he bent down and picked up a twig 
which lay on the ground at his feet. He began 
to strip the leaves from it with careful slowness, 
and he kept his eyes fixed on it as he went on 
talking. 

‘‘Ye’ll never guess who IVe ben a-talkin’ to to- 
day, an’ what I’ve ben talkin’ to ’em about.” 

She put her hand on his knee caressingly. 

“Tell me, father,” she said. 

He laughed a jerky, high-pitched laugh. 

“ I’ve ben talkin’ to Jedge Powers,” he said. 
“ He’s up yere from Howelsville, a-runnin’ fer 
senator. He’s sot his mind on makin’ it, too, an’ 
he was a-tellin’ me what his principles was. He 
— he’s got a heap o’ principles. An’ he told me 
his wife an’ family was a-goin’ to Europe. He 
was mighty sosherble — an’ he said they was a-goin’ 
to Europe.” 

He had stripped the last leaf from the twig and 
had begun upon the bark. Just at this juncture 
it slipped from his hand and fell on the ground. 
He bent down again to pick it up. 


LOUISIANA. 


Ii6 

Louisianny/’ he, said, how — would ye like 
to go to Europe ? 

She started back amazed, but she could not 
catch even a glimpse of his face, he was so busy 
^ with the twig. 

I go to Europe — I ! she said. ‘‘ I don’t — I 
never thought of it. It is not people like us who 
go to Europe, father.’' 

Louisianny,” he said, hurriedly, what’s agin 
it ? Thar aint nothin’ — nothin’ ! It come in my 
mind when Powers was a-tellin’ me. I ses to my- 
self, ‘ Why, here’s the very thing fer Louisianny ! 
Travel an’ furrin langwidges an’ new ways o’ doin’. 
It’s what she’d oughter hed long ago. ’ An’ Powers 
he went on a-talkin’ right while I was a-steddyin, 
an’ he ses : ‘ Whar’s that pretty darter o’ yourn 
thet we was so took with when we passed through 
Hamilton last summer ? Why,’ ses he, — he ses it 
hisself, Louisianny, — ‘ why don’t ye send her to 
Europe ? Let her go with my wife. She’ll take 
care of her.’ An’ I stopped him right thar. ' Do 
ye mean it, Jedge ? ’ I ses. ‘ Yes,’ ses he. * Why 
not ? My wife an’ daughter hev talked about her 
many a time, an’ said how they’d like to see her 
agin. Send her,’ ses he. ‘ You’re a rich man, an* 
ye kin afford it. Squire, if ye will.’ An’ I ses, 
* So I kin ef she’d like to go, an’ what’s more, I’m 


A NEW PLAN 




I17 


a-goin* to ask her ef she would — fer thar aint noth- 
in’ agin it — nothin’.’ ” 

He paused for a moment and turned to look at 
her. 

‘‘ Thet’s what I was steddyin’ about mostly, 
Louisianny,” he said, '' when I set yere afore ye 
come.” 

She had been sitting beside him, and she sprang 
to her feet and stood before him. 

Father,” she cried, are you tired of me ? ” 

‘‘Tired of ye, Louisianny?” he repeated. 
“ Tired of ye ? ” 

She flung out her hand with a wild gesture and 
burst into tears. 

“ Are you tired of me ? ” she said again. “ Don’t 
you love me any more ? Don’t you want me as 
you used to ? Could you do without me for months 
and months and know I was far away and couldn’t 
come to you ? No, you couldn’t. You couldn’t. 
I know that, though something — I don’t know 
what — has come between us, and I feel it every 
minute, and most when you are kindest. Is there 
nothing in the way of my going away — nothing ? 
Think again.” 

“ Louisianny,” he answered, “ I cayn’t think of 
nothin’ — thet’s partic’lar.” 

She slipped down on her knee and threw hersell 


ii8 


LOUISIANA. 


on his breast, clinging to him with all her young 
strength. 

Are you nothing ? ’’ she cried. Is all your 
love nothing ? Are all your beautiful, good 
thoughts for my happiness ‘ nothing * ? Is your 
loneliness nothing ? Shall I leave you here to live 
by yourself in the new home which is strange to 
you — after you have given up the old one you 
knew and loved for me ? Oh ! what has made 
you think I have no heart, and no soul, and noth- 
ing to be grateful with ? Have I ever been bad 
and cruel and hard to you that you can think it ? ** 
She poured forth her love and grief and tender 
reproach on his breast with such innocent fervor 
that he could scarcely bear it. His eyes were wet 
too, and his furrowed, sunburnt cheeks, and his 
breath came short and fast while he held her close 
in his arms. 

Honey,*’ he said, just as he had often spoken 
to her when she had been a little child, Louisi- 
anny, honey, no ! No, never ! I never hed a 
thought agin ye, not in my bottermost heart. Did 
ye think it ? Lord, no ! Thar aint nothin* ye*ve 
never done in yer life that was meant to hurt or 
go agin me. Ye never did go agin me. Ye aint 
like me, honey ; ye’re kinder finer. Ye was borned 
so. I seed it when ye was in yer cradle. I’ve 


A NEW PLAN 


II9 


said it to lanthy (an' sence ye're growed up IVe 
said it more). Thar's things ye'd oughter hev 
thet’s diffrent from what most of us wants — it's 
through you a-bein' so much finer. Ye mustn’t 
be so tender-hearted, honey, ye mustn't." 

She clung more closely to him and cried afresh, 
though more softly. 

Nothing shall take me away from you," she 
said, ** ever again. I went away once, and it 
would have been better if I had stayed at home. 
The people did not want me. They meant to be 
good to me, and they liked me, but — they hurt 
me without knowing it, and it would have been 
better if I had stayed here. You don't make me 
feel ashamed, and sad, and bitter. You love me 
just as I am, and you would love me if I knew 
even less, and was more simple. Let me stay 
with you ! Let us stay together always — always 
— always ! " 

He let her cry her fill, holding her pretty 
head tenderly and soothing her as best he could. 
Somehow he looked a little brighter himself, and 
not quite so pale as he had done when she found 
him sitting alone trying to do the new house 

jestice." 

When at length they went in to supper it was 


120 


LOUISIANA. 


almost dusk, and he had his arm still around her. 
He did not let her go until they sat down at the 
table, and then she brought her chair quite close 
to his, and while he ate looked at him often with 
her soft, wet eyes. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


CONFESSIONS. 

They had a long, quiet evening together after- 
ward. They sat before the fire, and Louisiana 
drew her low seat near him so that she could rest 
her head upon his knee. 

“ It*s almost like old times,*’ she said. ** Let 
us pretend I never went away and that everything 
is as it used to be.” 

Would ye like it to be thataway, Louisianny ? ” 
he askedo 

She was going to say Yes,” but she remem- 
bered the changes he had made to please her, and 
she turned her face and kissed the hand her cheek 
rested against. 

You mustn’t fancy I don’t think the new house 
is beautiful,” she said. ‘‘ It isn’t that I mean. 
What I would like to bring back is — is the feeling 
I used to have. That is all — nothing but the old 
feeling. And people can’t always have the same 


122 


LOUISIANA, 


feelings, can they ? Things change so as we get 
older.” 

He looked at the crackling fire very hard for a 
minute. 

‘‘Thet*s so,” he said. ‘‘Thet’s so. Things 
changes in ginVal, an* feelings, now, they’re cur’us. 
Thar’s things as kin be altered an’ things as cayn’t 
— an’ feelin’s they cayn’t. They’re cur’us. Ef 
ye hurt ’em, now, thar’s money ; it aint nowhar 
— it don’t do no good. Thar aint nothin’ ye kin 
buy as ’ll set ’em straight. Ef — fer instants — 
money could buy back them feelin’s of yourn — 
them as ye’d like to hev back — how ready an* 
willin’ I’d be to trade fer’ em ! Lord ! how ready 
an’ willin’ ! But it wont do it. Thar’s whar it is. 
When they’re gone a body hez to larn to git along 
without ’em.” 

And they sat silent again for some time, listen- 
ing to the snapping of the dry wood burning in 
the great fire-place. 

When they spoke next it was of a different sub- 
ject. 

Ef ye aint a-goin’ to Europe — *’ the old man 
began. 

And I’m not, father,” Louisiana put in. 

Ef ye aint, we must set to work fixin’ up right 
away. This mornin’ I was a-layin’ out to myself 


CONFESSIONS. 


123 


to let it stay tell ye come back an* then hev it all 
ready fer ye — cheers an’ tables — an’ sophias — an’ 
merrors — an’ — ile paintin’s. I laid out to do it 
slow, Louisianny, and take time, an’ steddy a 
heap, an’ to take advice from them es knows, 
afore I traded ary time. I ’lowed it’d be a heap 
better to take advice from them es knowed. 
Brown, es owns the Springs, I ’lowed to hev asked 
him, now, — he’s used to furnishin’ up an’ knows 
whar to trade an’ what to trade fer. The paint- 
in’s, now — I’ve heern it takes a heap o’ experi- 
ence to pick ’em, an’ I aint hed no experience. I 
’low I shouldn’t know a good un when I seen it. 
Now, them picters as was in the parlor — ye know 
more than I do, I dessay, — now, them picters,” he 
said, a little uncertainly, “ was they to say good, 
or — or only about middlin’ ? ” 

She hesitated a second. 

‘‘ Mother was fond of them,” she broke out, in 
a burst of simple feeling. 

Remembering how she had stood before the 
simpering, red-cheeked faces and hated them; 
how she had burned with shame before them, she 
was stricken with a bitter pang of remorse. 

‘‘ Mother was fond of them,” she said. 

Thet’s so,” he answered, simply. ‘‘Thet’s 
so, she was ; an’ you a-bein’ so soft-hearted an’ 


124 


LOUISIANA. 


tender makes it sorter go agin ye to give in as 
they wasn’t — what she took ’em fer. But ye see, 
thet — though it’s nat’ral — it’s nat’ral — don’t make 
’em good or bad, Louisianny, an’ Lord ! it don’t 
harm her. ’Taint what folks knows or what they 
don’t know thet makes the good in ’em. lanthy 
she warn’t to say ’complished, but I don’t see how 
she could hev ben no better than she was — nor 
more calc’lated to wear well — in the p’int o’ reli- 
gion. Not hevin* experience in ile paintin’s aint 
what’d hurt her, nor make us think no less of her. 
It wouldn’t hev hurt her when she was livin’, an’ 
Lord ! she’s past it now — she’s past it, lanthy is.” 

He talked a good deal about his plans and of 
the things he meant to buy. He was quite eager 
in his questioning of her and showed such lavish- 
ness as went to her heart. 

‘‘ I want to leave ye well fixed,” he said. 

‘‘ Leave me ? ” she echoed. 

He made a hurried effort to soften the words. 

I’d oughtn’t to said it,” he said. It was 
kinder keerless. Thet thar — it’s a long way off 
— mebbe — an’ I’d oughtn’t to hev said it. It’s a 
way old folks hev — but it’s a bad way. Things 
git to seem sorter near to ’em — an’ ordinary.” 

The whole day had been to Louisiana a slow 
approach to a climax. Sometimes when her father 


CONFESSIONS. 1 2 5 

talked she could scarcely bear to look at his face 
as the firelight shone on it. 

So, when she had bidden him good-night at 
last and walked to the door leaving him standing 
upon the hearth watching her as she moved away, 
she turned round suddenly and faced him again, 
with her hand upon the latch. 

Father,** she cried, I want to tell you — I 
want to tell you *’ 

What ? ’* he said. What, Louisianny ? ** 
She put her hand to her side and leaned against 
the door — a slender, piteous figure. 

“ Don*t look at me kindly,** she said. I don*t 
deserve it I deserve nothing. I have been 
ashamed ** 

He stopped her, putting up his shaking hand and 
turning pale. 

Don’t say nothin* as ye*ll be sorry fer when 
ye feel better, Louisianny,** he said. Don’t git 
carried away by yer feelin’s into sayin* nothin* es is 
hard on yerself. Don’t ye do it, Louisianny. Thar 
aint no need fer it, honey. Yer kinder wrought 
up, now, an* ye cayn’t do yerself jestice.** 

But she would not be restrained. 

‘‘ I must tell you,** she said. It has been on 
my heart too long. I ought never to have gone 
away. Everybody was different from us — and 


126 


LOUISIANA, 


had new ways. I think they laughed at me, and 
it made me bad. I began to ponder over things 
until at last I hated myself and everything, and 
was ashamed that I had been content. When I 
told you I wanted to play a joke on the people 
who came here, it was not true. I wanted them 
to go away without knowing that this was my 
home. It was only a queer place, to be laughed 
at, to them, and I was ashamed of it, and bitter 
and angry. When they went into the parlor they 
laughed at it and at the pictures, and everything in 
it, and I stood by with my cheeks burning. When 
I saw a strange woman in the kitchen it flashed 
into my mind that I had no need to tell them 
that all these things that they laughed at had been 
round me all my life. They were not sneering at 
them — it was worse than that — they were only in- 
terested and amused and curious, and were not 
afraid to let me see. The — gentleman had been 
led by his sister to think I came from some city. 
He thought I was — was prettty and educated,— 
his equal, and I knew how amazed he would be 
and how he would say he could not believe that 
I had lived here, and wonder at me and talk me 
over. And I could not bear it. I only wanted 
him to go away without knowing, and never, 
never see me again ! 


CONFESSIONS. 


12 ? 


Remembering the pain and fever and humilia- 
tion of the past, and of that dreadful day above 
all, she burst into sobbing. 

'' You did not think I was that bad, did you ? ’ 
she said. But I was ! I was ! ** 

Louisianny,’' he said, huskily, come yere. 
Thar aint no need fer ye to blame yerself thataway. 
Yer kinder wrought up.*' 

Don't be kind to me ! " she said. Don't ! 
I want to tell you all — every word ! I was so bad 
and proud and angry that I meant to carry it out 
to the end, and tried to — only I was not quite bad 
enough for one thing, father — I was not bad enough 
to be ashamed of j/ouy or to bear to sit by and see 
them cast a slight upon you. They didn't mean it 
for a slight — it was only their clever way of look- 
ing at things — but / loved you. You were all I had 
left, and I knew you were better than they were 
a thousand times ! Did they think I would give 
your warm, good heart — your kind, faithful heart 
— for all they had learned, or for all they could 
ever learn ? It killed me to see and hear them ! 
And it seemed as if I was on fire. And I told them 
the truth — that you were mj/ father and that I loved 
you and was proud of you — that I might be ashamed 
of myself and all the rest, but not of you — never of 
you — for I wasn't worthy to kiss your feet ! " 


128 


LOUISIANA. 


For one moment her father watched her, his lips 
parted and trembling. It seemed as if he meant 
to try to speak, but could not. Then his eyes 
fell with an humble, bewildered, questioning glance 
upon his feet, encased in their large, substantial 
brogans — the feet she had said she was not worthy 
to kiss. What he saw in them to touch him so 
it would be hard to tell — for he broke down ut- 
terly, put out his hand, groping to feel for his 
chair, fell into it with head bowed on his arm, and 
burst into sobbing too. 

She left her self-imposed exile in an instant, 
ran to him, and knelt down to lean against him. 

Oh ! she cried, ‘‘have I broken your heart? 
Have I broken your heart ? Will God ever for- 
give me ? I don't ask you to forgive me, father, 
for I don't deserve it." 

At first he could not speak, but he put his arm 
round her and drew her head up to his breast — 
and, with all the love and tenderness he had lav- 
ished upon her all her life, she had never known 
such love and tenderness as he expressed in this 
one movement. 

“ Louisianny,’' he said, brokenly, when he had 
found his voice, “ it’s you as should be a-forgivin’ 
me." 

“ I ! " she exclaimed. 


CONFESSIONS. 1 29 

He held her in his trembling arm so close that 
she felt his heart quivering. 

‘‘ To think/' he almost whispered, as I should 
not hev ben doin' ye jestice ! To think as I didn't 
know ye well enough to do ye jestice ! To think 
yer own father, thet's knowed ye all yer life, could 
hev give in to its bein' likely as ye wasn't — what 
he’d allers thought, an' what yer mother 'd 
thought, an' what ye was, honey." 

I don't " she began falteringly. 

‘‘It's me as oughter be a-standin' agin the 
door," he said. “It's me! I knowed every 
word of the first part of what ye've told me, 
Louisianny. I've been so sot on ye thet I've got 
into a kinder noticin' way with ye, an' I guessed 
it out. I seen it in yer face when ye stood thar 
tryin' to laugh on the porch while them people 
was a- waitin'. 'Twa'n’t no nat'ral gal’s laugh ye 
laughed, and when ye thought I wasn't a-noticin' 
I was a-noticin' an' a-thinkin' all the time. But I 
seen more than was thar, honey, an' I didn’t do 
ye jestice — an' I've ben punished fer it. It come 
agin me like a slungshot. I ses to myself, ‘ She’s 
ashamed o' me/ It's me she's ashamed of — an’ 
she wants to pass me off fer a stranger ! ' " 

The girl drew off from him a little and looked 
up into his face wonderingly. 

6 * 


LOUISIANA. 


iSO 

You thought that ! she said. And nevef 

told me — and humored me, and ** 

**Vd oughter knowed ye better,'* he said; 
‘‘but I’ve suffered fer it, Louisianny. I ses to 
myself, ‘ All the years thet we’ve ben sot on each 
other an’ nussed each other through our little 
sick spells, an’ keered fer each other, hes gone fer 
nothin’. She wants to pass me off fer a stranger.’ 
Not that I blamed ye, honey. Lord ! I knowed 
the difference betwixt us ! /’d knowed it long 

afore you did. But somehow it warn’t eggsakly 
what I looked fer an’ it was kinder hard on me 
right at the start. An’ then the folks went away 
an’ ye didn’t go with ’em, an’ thar was somethin* 
workin’ on ye as I knowed ye wasn’t ready to tell 
me about. An’ I sot an’ steddied it over an’ 
watched ye, an’ I prayed some, an’ I laid wake 
nights a-steddyin*. An’ I made up my mind thet 
es I’d ben the cause o’ trouble to ye I’d oughter 
try an’ sorter balance the thing. I allers ’lowed 
parents hed a duty to their child’en. An’ I ses, 
‘ Thar’s some things thet kin be altered an’ some 
thet cayn’t. Let’s alter them es kin ! ’ ” 

She remembered the words well, and now she 
saw clearly the dreadful pain they had expressed ; 
they cut her to her soul. 

“ Oh ! father,” she cried. “ How could you ? ’* 


CONFESSIONS, 


131 

rd oughter knowed ye better, Louisianny,'’ 
he repeated. ‘‘But I didn’t. I ses, ‘What 
money an’ steddyin’ an’ watchin’ll do fer her to 
make up, shell be done. I’ll try to make up 
fer the wrong I’ve did her onwillin’ly — onwill- 
in’ly.’ An’ I went to the Springs an’ I watched 
an’ steddied thar, an’ I come home an’ I watched 
an’ steddied thar — an’ I hed the house fixed, an’ 
I laid out to let ye go to Europe — though what 
I’d heern o’ the habits o’ the people, an’ the bri- 
gands an’ sich, went powerful agin me makin’ up 
my mind easy. An’ I never lost sight nary min- 
nit o’ what Fd laid out fer to do — but I wasn’t 
doin’ ye jestice an’ didn’t suffer no more than I’d 
oughter. An’ when ye stood up thar agen the 
door, honey, with yer tears a-streamin’ an’ yer 
eyes a-shinin’, an’ told me what ye’d felt an’ what 
ye’d said about — wa’l,” (delicately) “about thet 
thar as ye thought ye wasn’t worthy to do, it set 
my blood a-tremblin’ in my veins — an’ my heart 
a-shakin’ in my side, an’ me a-goin’ all over — an’ 
I was struck all of a heap, an’ knowed thet the 
Lord hed ben better to me than I thought, an’ — 
an’ even when I was fondest on ye, an’ proudest 
on ye, I hadn’t done ye no sort o’ jestice in the 
world — an’ never could ! ” 

There was no danger of their misunderstanding 


132 


LOUISIANA. 


each other again. When they were calmer they 
talked their trouble over simply and confidingly, 
holding nothing back. 

** When ye told me, Louisianny,'* said her father, 
‘‘that ye wanted nothin’ but me, it kinder went 
agin me more than all the rest, fer I thinks, ses I 
to myself, ‘ It aint true, an’ she must be a-gettin’ 
sorter hardened to it, or she’d never said it. It 
seemed like it was kinder onnecessary. Lord ! 
the onjestice I was a-doin’ ye ! ” 

They bade each other good-night again, at last. 

“ Fer ye’re a-lookin’ pale,” he said. “ An’ I’ve 
been kinder out o’ sorts myself these last two or 
three weeks. My dyspepsy’s bin back on me agin 
an’ thet thar pain in my side’s bin a-workin’ on 
me. We must take keer o’ ourselves, bein’ es 
thar’s on’y us two, an’ we’re so sot on each other.” 

He went to the door with her and said his last 
words to her there. 

“ I’m glad it come to-night,” he said, in a grate- 
ful tone. “ Lord ! how glad I am it come to-night ! 
S’posin’ somethin’ hed happened to ary one of us 
an’ the other hed ben left not a-knowin’ how it was 
I’m glad it didn’t last no longer, Louisianny.” 

And so they parted for the night. 


CHAPTER XV. 

'^ianthy!'' 

It was later than usual when Louisiana awak* 
ened in the morning. She awakened suddenly 
and found herself listening to the singing of a bird 
on the tree near her window. Its singing was so 
loud and shrill that it overpowered her and aroused 
her to a consciousness of fatigue and exhaustion. 

It seemed to her at first that no one was stir- 
ring in the house below, but after a few minutes 
she heard some one talking in her father's room 
— talking rapidly in monotonous tone. 

I wonder who it is," she said, and lay back 
upon her pillow, feeling tired out and bewildered 
between the bird's shrill song and the strange 
voice. 

And then she heard heavy feet on the stairs and 
listened to them nervously until they reached her 
door and the door was pushed open unceremoni- 
ously. 


134 


LOUISIANA, 


The negro woman Nancy thrust her head intc 
the room. 

Miss Louisianny, honey/' she said. Ye aint 
up yet ? " 

^‘No." 

‘^Ye'd better up, honey — an' come down 
stairs.” 

But the girl made no movement. 

Why ? ” she asked, listlessly. 

‘‘Yer pappy, honey — he's sorter cur'us. He 
don't seem to be right well. He didn't seem to 
be quite at hisself when I went to light his fire. 
He '' 

Louisiana sat upright in bed, her great coil of 
black hair tumbling over one shoulder and making 
her look even paler than she was. 

Father ! '' she said. “ He was quite well late 
last night. It was after midnight when we went to 
bed, and he was well then.” 

The woman began to fumble uneasily at the 
latch. 

‘‘Don't ye git skeered, chile,” she said. 
“ Mebbe 'taint nothin' — but seemed to me like — 
like he didn't know me.” 

Louisiana was out of bed, standing upon the 
floor and dressing hurriedly. 

He was well last night,” she said, piteously. 


^*IANTHYr^ 135 

Only a few hours ago. He was well and talked 
to me and ” 

She stopped suddenly to listen to the voice 
down-stairs — a new and terrible thought flashing 
upon her. 

‘‘Who is with him?’' she asked. “Who is 
talking to him ? ” 

“ Thar aint no one with him,” was the answer. 
“ He’s by hisself, honey.” 

Louisiana was buttoning her wrapper at the 
throat. Such a tremor fell upon her that she 
could not finish what she was doing. She left the 
button unfastened and pushed past Nancy and ran 
swiftly down the stairs, the woman following her. 

The door of her father’s room stood open and 
the fire Nancy had lighted burned and crackled 
merrily. Mr. Rogers was lying high upon his 
pillow, watching the blaze. His face was flushed 
and he had one hand upon his chest. He turned 
his eyes slowly upon Louisiana as she entered and 
for a second or so regarded her wonderingly. 
Then a change came upon him, his face lighted 
up — it seemed as if he saw all at once who had 
come to him. 

“ lanthy ! ” he said. “I didn’t sca’cely know 
ye ! Ye’ve bin gone so long ! Whar hev ye 
bin ? ” 


Z 017/SIAN A. 


^ 3 ^ 

But even then she could not realize the truth 
It was so short a time since he had bidden hei 
good-night and kissed her at the door. 

‘‘Father!’' she cried. “It is Louisiana! 
Father, look at me ! " 

But he was looking at her, and yet he only 
smiled again. 

“ It’s bin such a long time, lanthy," he said. 
“ Sometimes I’ve thought ye wouldn’t never come 
back at all.” 

And when she fell upon her knees at the bed- 
side, with a desolate cry of terror and anguish, 
he did not seem to hear it at all, but lay fondling 
her bent head and smiling still, and saying hap- 
pily: 

“ Lord ! I am glad to see ye ! ” 

When the doctor came — he was a mountaineer 
like the rest of them, a rough good-natured fellow 
who had “read a course” with somebody and 
“ ’tended lectures in Cincinnatty” — he could tell 
her easily enough what the trouble was. 

“ Pneumony,” he said. “And pretty bad at 
that. He haint hed no health fer a right smart 
while. He haint never got over thet spell he hed 
last winter. This yere change in the weather’s 
what’s done it. He was a-complainin’ to me the 


•*IANTHYr^ 137 

other day about thet thar old pain in his chist. 
Things hes bin kinder ’cumylatin’ on him/' 

‘‘He does not know me!" said Louisiana. 

He is very ill — he is very ill ! " 

Doctor Hankins looked at his patient for a mo- 
ment, dubiously. 

“ Wa-al, thet's so," he said, at length. “ He's 
purty bad off — purty bad 1 " 

By night the house was full of visitors and vol- 
unteer nurses. The fact that “ Uncle Elbert Ro- 
gers was down with pneumony, an' Louisianny 
thar without a soul anigh her" was enough to 
rouse sympathy and curiosity. Aunt 'Mandy, 
Aunt Ca’line and Aunt 'Nervy came up one after 
the other. 

“ Louisianny now, she aint nothin' but a young 
thing, an' don't know nothin'," they said. “An' 
Elbert bein' sich nigh kin, it'd look powerful bad 
if we didn't go." 

They came in wagons or ricketty buggies and 
brought their favorite medicines and liniments 
with them in slab-sided, enamel-cloth valises. 
They took the patient under their charge, applied 
their nostrums and when they were not busy 
seemed to enjoy talking his symptoms over in low 
tones. They were very good to Louisiana, reliev- 
ing her of every responsibility in spite of herself, 


138 


LOUISIANA. 


and shaking their heads at each other pityingly 
when her back was turned. 

‘‘She never give him no trouble,’* they said. 

She*s got thet to hold to. An* they was pow- 
erful sot on her, both him an* lanthy. I*ve heern 
*em say she alius was kinder tender an* easy to 
manage.** 

Their husbands came to “ sit up ** with them at 
night, and sat by the fire talking about their crops 
and the elections, and expectorating with regular- 
ity into the ashes. They tried to persuade Louisi- 
ana to go to bed, but she would not go. 

“ Let me sit by him, if there is nothing else I 
can do,** she said. “ If he should come to him- 
self for a minute he would know me if I was near 
him.** 

In his delirium he seemed to have gone back to 
a time before her existence — the time when he 
was a young man and there was no one in the 
new house he had built, but himself and “ lanthy.** 
Sometimes he fancied himself sitting by the fire 
on a winter*s night and congratulating himself 
upon being there. 

“ Jest to think,** he would say in a quiet, spec- 
ulative voice, “ that two year ago I didn*t know 
ye — an’ thar ye air, a-sittin* sewin*, and the fire 
a-cracklin*, an* the house all fixed. This yere*s 


^^lANTHYJ^^ 139 

what I call solid comfort, lanthy — jest solid com- 
fort ! 

Once he wakened suddenly from a sleep and 
finding Louisiana bending over him, drew her 
face down and kissed her. 

I didn’t know ye was bo nigh, lanthy,” he 
whispered. Lord ! jest to think yer allers nigh 
an’ thar cayn’t nothin’ separate us.” 

The desolateness of so living a life outside his, 
was so terrible to the poor child who loved him, 
that at times she could not bear to remain in the 
room, but would go out into the yard and ramble 
about aimless and heart-broken, looking back 
now and then at the new, strange house, with a 
wild pang. 

There will be nothing left if he leaves me,” 
she said. ‘‘ There will be nothing.” 

And then she would hurry back, panting, and 
sit by him again, her eyes fastened upon his un- 
conscious face, watching its every shade of ex- 
pression and change. 

‘‘ She’ll take it mighty hard,” she heard Aunt 
Ca’line whisper one day, ^^ef ” 

And she put her hands to her ears and buried 
her face in the pillow, that she might not hear 
the rest. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


“don’t do no one a onjestice.’^ 

He was not ill very long. Toward the end of 
the second week the house was always full of 
visitors who came to sympathize and inquire and 
prescribe, and who, in many cases, came from 
their farms miles away attracted by the news 
that “Uncle Elbert Rogers” was “ mighty bad 
off.” They came on horseback and in wagons or 
buggies — men in homespun, and women in sun- 
bonnets — and they hitched their horses at the 
fence and came into the house with an awkwardly 
subdued air, and stood in silence by the sick bed 
for a few minntes, and then rambled towards the 
hearth and talked in spectral whispers. 

“The old man’s purty low,” they always said, 
“he’s purty low.” And then they added among 
themselves that he had “ allers bin mighty clever, 
an’ a good neighbor.” 

When she heard them speak of him in this? 


*^DON^T DO NO ONE A ONJESTICE:^ Hi 


manner, Louisiana knew what it meant. She 
never left the room again after the first day that 
they spoke so, and came in bodies to look at him, 
and turn away and say that he had been good 
to them. The men never spoke to her after their 
first nod of greeting, and the women but rarely, 
but they often glanced hurriedly askance at her as 
she sat or stood by the sick man’s pillow. Some- 
how none of them had felt as if they were on very 
familiar terms with her, though they all spoke in 
a friendly way of her as being a mighty purty, 
still, kind o’ a harmless young critter.” They 
thought, when they saw her pallor and the anguish 
in her eyes, that she was ‘‘takin’ it powerful 
hard, an’ no wonder,” but they knew nothing of 
her desperate loneliness and terror. 

Uncle Elbert he’ll leave a plenty,” they said 
in undertones. “She’ll be well pervided fer, 
will Louisianny.” 

And they watched over their charge and nursed 
him faithfully, feeling not a little sad themselves 
as they remembered his simple good nature and 
neighborliness and the kindly prayers for which 
he had been noted in “ meetin*.” 

On the last day of the second week the doctor 
held a consultation with Aunt ’Nervy and Aunt 
Ca’line on the front porch before he went away, 


142 


LOUISIANA. 


and when they re-entered the room they spoke in 
whispers even lower than before and moved about 
stealthily. The doctor himself rode away slowly 
and stopped at a house or so on the wayside, 
where he had no patients, to tell the inhabitants 
what he had told the head nurses. 

We couldn't hev expected him to stay allers," 
he said, but we'll miss him mightily. He haint 
a enemy in the county — nary one ! " 

That afternoon when the sun was setting, the 
sick man wakened from a long, deep sleep. The 
first thing he saw was the bright pale-yellow of a 
tree out in the yard, which had changed color 
since he had seen it last. It was a golden tree 
now as it stood in the sun, its leaves rustling in a 
faint, chill wind. The next thing, he knew that 
there were people in the room who sat silent and 
all looked at him with kindly, even reverent, eyes. 
Then he turned a little and saw his child, who 
bent towards him with dilated eyes and trembling, 
parted lips. A strange, vague memory of weary 
pain and dragging, uncertain days and nights 
came to him and he knew, and yet felt no fear. 

Louisianny ! " he said. 

He could only speak in a whisper and tremu- 
lously. Those who sat about him hushed theil 
very breath. 


^^DON^T DO NO ONE A ONJESTICE:* 143 

Lay yer head — on the piller — nigh me/^ he 
said. 

She laid it down and put her hand in his. The 
great tears were streaming down her face, but she 
said not a word. 

I haint got long — honey,"' he faltered. The 
Lord — He'll keer — fer ye." 

Then for a few minutes he lay breathing faintly, 
but with his eyes open and smiling as they rested 
on the golden foliage of the tree. 

How yaller — it is!" he whispered. '^Like 
gold. lanthy was powerful — sot on it. It — 
kinder beckons." 

It seemed as if he could not move his eyes from 
it, and the pause that followed was so long that 
Louisiana could bear it no longer, and she lifted 
her head and kissed him. 

Father ! " she cried. Say something to 
me / Say something to me ! '' 

It drew him back and he looked up into her 
eyes as she bent over him. 

‘‘Ye'll be happy — "he said, “afore long. 1 
kinder — know. Lord! how I've — loved ye, 
honey — an' ye've desarved it — all. Don't ye — do 
no one — a onjestice." 

And then as she dropped her white face upon 
the pillow again he saw her no longer — nor the 


144 


LOUISIANA. 


people, nor the room, but lay quite still with 
parted lips and eyes wide open, smiling still at 
the golden tree waving and beckoning in the 
wind. ^ 

This he saw last of all, and seemed still to see 
even when some one came silently, though with 
tears, and laid a hand upon his eyes. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

A LEAF. 

There was a sunny old grave-yard half a mile 
from the town, where the people of Bowersville 
laid their dead under the long grass and tangle 
of wild-creeping vines, and the whole country-side 
gathered there when they lowered the old man 
into his place at his wife’s side. His neighbors 
sang his funeral hymn and performed the last 
offices for him with kindly hands, and when they 
turned away and left him there was not a man or 
woman of them who did not feel that they had 
lost a friend. 

They were very good to Louisiana. Aunt 
’Nervy and Aunt Ca’line deserted their families 
that they might stay with her until all was over, 
doing their best to give her comfort. It was Aunt 
^Nervy who first thought of sending for the girl 
cousin to whom the trunkful of clothes had been 
given. 

7 


146 


LOUISIANA. 


‘‘ Le’s send for Leander's Jenny, Capline,’’ she 
said. ‘‘Mebbe it'd help her some to hev a gal 
nigh her. Gals kinder onderstands each other, 
an' Jenny was alius powerful fond o' Lowizyanny." 

So Jenny was sent for and came. From her 
lowly position as one of the fifteen in an onfort'- 
nit" family she had adored and looked up to 
Louisiana all her life. All the brightest days in 
her experience had been spent at Uncle Elbert's 
with her favorite cousin. But there was no bright- 
ness about the house now. When she arrived and 
was sent upstairs to the pretty new room Louisi- 
ana occupied she found the girl lying upon the 
bed. She looked white and slender in her black 
dress, her hands were folded palm to palm under 
her check, and her eyes were wide open. 

Jenny ran to her and knelt at her side. She 
kissed her and began to cry. 

Oh ! " she sobbed, somehow I didn't ever 
think I should come here and not find Uncle 
Elbert. It don't seem right— it makes it like a 
strange place." 

Then Louisiana broke into sobs, too. 

It is a strange place ! " she cried — a strange 
place — a strange place ! Oh, if one old room was 
left — ^just one that I could go into and not feel «o 
lonely ! " 


A LEAF. 147 

But she had no sooner said it than she checked 
herself. 

Oh, I oughtn’t to say that ! ” she cried. I 
wont say it. He did it all for mej and I didn’t 
deserve it.” 

‘‘Yes, you did,” said Jenny, fondling her. 
“ He was always saying what a good child you 
had been — and that you had never given him any 
trouble.” 

“ That was because he was so good,” said 
Louisiana. “No one else in the whole world was 
so good. And now he is gone, and I can never 
make him know how grateful I was and how I 
loved him.” 

“ He did know,” said Jenny. 

“ No,” returned Louisiana. “ It would have 
taken a long, long life to make him know all I 
felt, and now when I look back it seems as if we 
had been together such a little while. Oh ! I 
thought the last night we talked that there was a 
long life before us — that I should be old before he 
left me, and we should have had all those years 
together.” 

After the return from the grave -yard there was 
a prolonged discussion held among the heads of 
the different branches of the family. They gath- 
ered at one end of the back porch and talked of 


148 


LOUISIANA. 


Louisiana, who sat before the log fire in her room 
upstairs. 

‘'She aint in the notion o’ leavin’ the place, 
said Aunt ’Nervy. She cried powerful when I 
mentioned it to her, an’ wouldn’t hear to it. She 
says over an’ over ag’in ‘ Let me stay in the home 
he made for me, Aunt Ca’line.’ I reckon she’s a 
kind o’ notion Elbert ’lowed fur her to be yere 
when he was gone.” 

“ Wa-al now,” said Uncle Leander, “I reckon 
he did. He talked a heap on it when he was in a 
talkin’ way. He’s said to me ‘ I want things to 
be jest as she’d enjoy ’em most — when she’s 
sorter lonesome, es she will be, mebbe.’ Seemed 
like he hed it in his mind es he warnt long fur 
this world. Don’t let us cross her in nothin’. 
He never did. He was powerful tender on her, 
was Elbert.” 

“ I seed Marthy Lureny Nance this mornin’,” 
put in Aunt Ca’line, “an’ I told her to come up 
an’ kinder overlook things. She haint with no 
one now, an’ I dessay she’d like to stay an’ keep 
house.” 

“ I don’t see nothin’ ag’in it,” commented 
Uncle Steve, “if Louisianny don’t. She’s a set- 
tled woman, an’s bin married, an’ haint no family 
to pester her sence Nance is dead.” 


A LEAF. 


149 


She was allers the through-goin’ kind/' said 
Aunt 'Nervy. ‘‘Things 'll be well looked to — • 
an' she thought a heap o' Elbert. They was 
raised together." 

“S'pos'n ye was to go in an' speak to Louisi- 
anny," suggested Uncle Steve. 

Louisiana, being spoken to, was very tractable. 
She was willing to do anything asked of her but 
go away. 

“ I should be very glad to have Mrs. Nance 
here, Aunt Minerva," she said. “ She was 
always very kind, and father liked her. It won't 
be like having a strange face near me. Please 
tell her I want her to come and that I hope she 
will try to feel as if she was at home." 

So Marthy Lureny Nance came, and was for- 
mally installed in her position. She was a tall, 
strongly-built woman, with blue eyes, black hair, 
and thick black eyebrows. She wore, when she 
arrived, her best alpaca gown and a starched and 
frilled blue sun-bonnet. When she presented her- 
self to Louisiana she sat down before her, re- 
moved this sun-bonnet with a scientific flap and 
hung it on the back of her chair. 

“Ye look mighty peak-ed, Louisianny," she 
said. “ Mighty peak-ed." 


ISO 


LOUISIANA. 


I don’t feel very well,” Louisiana answered, 
but I suppose I shall be better after a while.” 

Ye’re talcin’ it powerful hard, Louisianny,” 
said Mrs. Nance, ^^an’ I don’t blame ye. I aint 
gwine to pester ye a- talkin’. I jest come to say 
I ’lowed to do my plum best by ye, an’ ax ye 
whether ye liked hop yeast or salt risin’ ? ” 

At the end of the week Louisiana and Mrs. 
Nance were left to themselves. Aunt ’Nervy 
and Aunt Ca’line and the rest had returned to 
their respective homes, even Jenny had gone 
back to Bowersville where she boarded with a 
relation and went to school. 

The days after this seemed so long to Louisi- 
ana that she often wondered how she lived 
through them. In the first passion of her sorrow 
she had not known how they passed, but now 
that all was silence and order in the house, and 
she was alone, she had nothing to do but to 
count the hours. There was no work for her, 
no one came in and out for whom she might in- 
vent some little labor of love ; there was no one 
to watch for, no one to think of. She used to sit 
for hours at her window watching the leaves 
change their color day by day, and at last flutter 
down upon the grass at the least stir of wind 


A LEAF. 


151 


Once she went out and picked up one of these 
leaves and taking it back to her room, shut it up 
in a book. 

Everything has happened to me since the 
day it was first a leaf,” she said. I have lived 
just as long as a leaf. That isn't long.” 

When the trees were bare, she one day remem- 
bered the books she had sent for when at the 
Springs, and she went to the place where she had 
put them, brought them out and tried to feel in- 
terested in them again. 

'‘I might learn a great deal,” she said, ‘Mf I 
persevered. I have so much time.” 

But she had not read many pages before the 
tears began to roll down her cheeks. 

‘‘If he had lived,” she said, “I might have 
read them to him and it would have pleased him 
so. I might have done it often if I had thought 
less about myself. He would have learned, too. 
He thought he was slow, but he would have 
learned, too, in a little while, and he would have 
been so proud.” 

She was very like her father in the simple ten- 
derness of her nature. She grieved with the 
hopeless passion of a child for the unconscious 
wrong she had done. 

It was as she sat trying to fix her mind upon 


152 


LOUISIANA. 


these books that there came to her the first thought 
of a plan which was afterwards of some vague com- 
fort to her. She had all the things which had fur- 
nished the old parlor taken into one of the unused 
rooms^ — ^the chairs and tables, the carpet, the or- 
naments and pictures. She spent a day in plac- 
ing everything as she remembered it, doing all 
without letting any one assist her. After it was 
arranged she left the room, and locked the door 
taking the key with her. 

No one shall go in but myself,'' she said. It 
belongs to me more than all the rest." 

never knowed her to do nothin' notionate 
but thet," remarked Mrs. Nance, in speaking of 
it afterwards. ‘‘She's mighty still, an' sits an’ 
grieves a heap, but she aint never notionate. 
Thet was kinder notionate fer a gal to do. She 
sets store on 'em 'cos they was her pappy's an* her 
ma's, I reckon. It cayn't be nothin' else, fur they 
aint to say stylish, though they was allers good 
solid-appearin’ things. The picters was the on'y 
things es was showy." 

“ She's mighty pale an' slender sence her pappy 
died," said the listener. 

“Wa-al, yes, she's kinder peak-ed," admitted 
Mrs. Nance. “ She's kinder peak-ed, but she'll 
git over it. Young folks allers does." 


A LEAF. 


153 


But she did not get over it as soon as Mrs. 
Nance had expected, in view of her youth. The 
days seemed longer and lonelier to her as the win- 
ter advanced, though they were really so much 
shorter, and she had at last been able to read and 
think of what she read. When the snow was on 
the ground and she could not wander about the 
place she grew paler still. 

‘‘ Louisianny,” said Mrs. Nance, coming in 
upon her one day as she stood at the window, 
ye’re a-beginnin’ to look like ye’re Aunt Me- 
lissy.” 

^'Am I?” answered Louisiana. *‘She died 
when she was young, didn’t she ? ” 

‘‘ She wasn’t but nineteen,” grimly. She hed 
a kind o’ love-scrape, an’ when the feller married 
Emmerline Ruggles she jest give right in. They 
hed a quarrel, an’ he was a sperrity kind o’ thing 
an’ merried Emmerline when he was mad. He 
cut off his nose to spite his face, an’ a nice time 
he hed of it when it was done. Melissy was a 
pretty gal, but kinder consumpshony, an’ she 
hedn’t backbone enough to hold her up. She died 
eight or nine months after they’d quarreled. Meb- 
be she’d hev died anyhow, but thet sorter hastened 
it up. When folks is consumpshony it don’t take 
much to set ’em off.” 

• 7 * 


154 


LOUISIANA. 


I don’t think I am ^ consumpshony/ ” said 
Louisiana. 

Lord-a-massy, no ! ” briskly, an’ ye’d best 
not begin to think it. I wasn’t a-meanin’ theL 
Ye’ve kinder got into a poor way steddyin’ bout 
yere pappy, an’ it’s tellin’ on ye. Ye look as if 
thar wasn’t a thing of ye — an’ ye don’t take no in- 
t’russ. Ye’d oughter stir round more.” 

‘‘I’m going to ‘stir round’ a little as soon as 
Jake brings the buggy up,” said Louisiana. “ I’m 
going out.” 

“ Whar? ” 

“Toward town.” 

For a moment Mrs. Nance looked at her charge 
steadily, but at length her feelings were too much 
for her. She had been thinking this matter over 
for some time. 

“Louisianny,” she said, “you’re a-gwine to the 
grave-yard, thet’s whar ye’re a-gwine an’ thar aint 
no sense in it. Young folks hedn’t ought to hold 
on to trouble thataway — ’taint nat’ral. They don’t 
gin’rally. Elbert ’d be ag’in it himself ef he know- 
ed — an’ I s’pose he does. Like as not him an* 
lanthy’s a-worryin’ about it now, an’ Lord knows 
ef they air it’ll spile all their enjoyment. King* 
dom come won’t be nothin’ to ’em if they’re on- 
easy in their minds ’bout ye. Now an’ ag’in it's 


A LEAF. 


I5S 

peared to me that mebbe harps an’ crowns an’ the 
company o’ ’postles don’t set a body up all in a 
minnit an’ make ’em forgit their flesh an’ blood an’ 
nat’ral feelin’s teetotally — an’ it kinder troubles 
me to think o’ Elbert an’ lanthy worryin’ an’ not 
havin’ no pleasure. Seems to me ef I was you I’d 
think it over an’ try to cheer up an’ take int’russ. 
Jest think how keerful yer pappy an’ ma was on 
ye an’ how sot they was on hevin’ ye well an’ 
happy.” 

Louisiana turned toward her. Her eyes were 
full of tears. 

Oh ! ” she whispered, do you — do you think 
they know ? ” 

Mrs. Nance was scandalized. 

Know ! ” she echoed. ‘‘ Wa-al now, Louisi- 
inny, ef I didn’t know yer raisin’, an’ thet ye’d 
been brought up with members all yer life, it’d go 
ag’in me powerful to hear ye talk thetaway . Ye 
know they know, an’ thet they’ll take it hard, ef 
they aint changed mightily, but, changed or not, 
I guess thar’s mighty few sperrits es haint sense 
enough to see yer a-grievin’ more an’ longer than’s 
good fur ye.” 

Louisiana turned to her window again. She 
rested her forehead against the frame-work and 


1 56 LOUISIANA. 

looked out for a little while. But at last she 
spoke. 

“Perhaps you are right,” she said. “It is 
true it would have hurt them when they were 
here. I think— I’ll try to— to be happier.” 

“ It’s what’ll please ’em best, if ye do, Louis- 
ianny,” commented Mrs. Nance. 

“ I’ll try,” Louisiana answered. “ I will go 
out now — the cold air will do me good, and when 
I come back you will see that I am — better.” 

“Wa-al,” advised Mrs. Nance, “ ef ye go, 
mind ye put on a plenty — an’ don’t stay long.” 

The excellent woman stood on the porch when 
the buggy was brought up, and having tucked 
the girl’s wraps round her, watched her driven 
away. 

“ Mebbe me a-speakin’s I did’ll help her,’ she 
said. “ Seems like it kinder teched her an’ sot 
her thinkin’. She was dretfle fond of he* pappy 
an’ she was allers a purty peaceable advise-takin' 
little thing — though she aint so little nuther. 
She’s reel tall an’ slim.” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


KNEW THAT I LOVED YOU/* 

It was almost dark when the buggy returned. 
As Jake drove up to the gate he bent forward to 
look at something. 

Thar’s a critter hitched to the fence,” he re- 
marked. ’Taint no critter from round yere. I 
never seen it afore.” 

Mrs. Nance came out upon the porch' to meet 
them. She was gently excited by an announce- 
ment she had to make. 

Louisianny,” she said, thar’s a man in the 
settin’-room. He’s a-waitin’ to see ye. I ask- 
ed him ef he hed anything to sell, an’ he sed no 
he hedn’t nothin’. He’s purty ^en-tee\ an’ sty- 
lish, but not to say showy, an’ he’s polite sort o’ 
manners.” 

Has he been waiting long ? ” Louisiana asked. 

‘‘ He’s ben thar half a hour, an’ I’ve hed the 
fire made up sence he come.” 


158 


LOUISIANA. 


Louisiana removed her hat and cloak and gave 
them to Mrs. Nance. She did it rather slowly, 
and having done it, crossed the hall to the sitting- 
room door, opened it and went in. 

There was no light in the room but the light of 
the wood fire, but that was very bright. It was 
so bright that she had not taken two steps into 
the room before she saw clearly the face of the 
man who waited for her. 

It was Laurence Ferrol. 

She stopped short and her hands fell at her 
sides. Her heart beat so fast that she could not 
speak. 

His heart beat fast, too, and it beat faster still 
when he noted her black dress and saw how pale 
and slight she looked in it. He advanced to- 
wards her and taking her hand in both his, led 
her to a chair. 

‘‘ I have startled you too much,’* he said. 
‘‘ Don’t make me feel that I was wrong to come. 
Don’t be angry with me.” 

She let him seat her in the chair and then he 
stood before her and waited for her to speak. 

It was rather — sudden,” she said, but I am 
not — angry.” 

There was a silence of a few seconds, because 
he was so moved by the new look her face wore 


HE KNEW THAT I LOVED YOU. 159 

that he could not easily command his voice and 
words. 

‘‘Have you been ill?'" he asked gently, at 
last. 

He saw that she made an effort to control her- 
self and answer him quietly, but before she spoke 
she gave up even the effort. She did not try to 
conceal or wipe away the great tears that fell 
down her cheeks as she looked up at him. 

“No, I have not been ill,'* she said. “My 
father is dead." 

And as she uttered the last words her voice 
sank almost into a whisper. 

Just for a breath's space they looked at each 
other and then she turned in her chair, laid her 
arm on the top of it and her face on her arm, with 
a simple helpless movement. 

“ He has been dead three months," she whis- 
pered, weeping. 

His own eyes were dim as he watched her. He 
had not heard of this before. He walked to the 
other end of the room and back again twice. 
When he neared her the last time he stopped. 

“ Must I go away ? " he asked unsteadily. “ I 
feel as if I had no right here." 

But she did not tell him whether he must go of 
stay. 


LOUISIANA. 


i6o 

If I stay I must tell you why I came and why 
I could not remain away,” he said. 

She still drooped against her chair and did not 
speak, and he drew still nearer to her. 

It does not seem the right time,” he said, 
but I must tell you even if I go away at once 
afterwards. I have never been happy an hour 
since we parted that wretched day. I have never 
ceased to think of what I had begun to hope for. 
I felt that it was useless to ask for it then — I feel 
as if it was useless now, but I must ask for it. 
Oh ! ” desperately, how miserably I am saying 
it all ! How weak it sounds ! ” 

In an instant he was kneeling on one knee at 
her side and had caught her hand and held it be- 
tween both his own. 

“ 1*11 say the simplest thing,** he said. ‘‘ I love 
you. Everything is against me, but I love you 
and I am sure I shall never love another woman.** 
He clasped her hand close and she did not draw 
it away. 

‘‘Won*t you say a word to me?** he asked. 
“ If you only tell me that this is the wrong time 
and that I must go away now, it will be better 
than some things you might say.** 

She raised her face and let him see it. 

No,** she said, ‘‘ it is not that it is the wrong 


HE KNEW THAT I LOVED YOU. l6l 

time. It is a better time than any other, because I 
am so lonely and my trouble has made my heart 
softer than it was when I blamed you so. It is 
not that it is the wrong time, but 

‘‘ Wait a minute,’' he broke in. “ Don’t — don’t 
do me an injustice ! ” 

He could not have said anything else so likely 
to reach her heart. She remembered the last fal- 
tering words she had heard as she bent over the 
pillow when the sun was shining on the golden 
tree with the wind waving its branches. 

“ Don’t do no one a onjestice, honey — don’t ye 
' — do no one— a onjestice.” 

“ Oh/’ she cried out, “ he told me that I must 
not — he told me, before he died ! ” 

“What ! ” said Ferrol. “ He told you not to 
be unjust to me ? 

“ It was you he meant,” she answered. “ He 
knew I had been hard to you — and he knew 
I ” 

She cowered down a little and Ferrol folded her 
in his arms. 

“Don’t be hard to me again,” he whispered. 
“ I have been so unhappy — I love you so tender- 
ly. Did he know that you — speak to me, Louise.^ 

She put her hand upon his shoulder. 


LOUISIANA. 


162 

He knew that I loved you/' she said, with a 
little sob. 

She was a great favorite among her husband’s 
friends in New York the next year. One of her 
chief attractions for them was that she was a new 
type.” They said that of her invariably when 
they delighted in her and told each other how 
gentle she was and how simple and sweet. The 
artists made ‘‘ studies” of her, and adored her, 
and were enthusiastic over her beauty ; while 
among the literary ones it was said, again and 
again, what a foundation she would be for a hero- 
ine of the order of those who love and suffer for 
love’s sake and grow more adorable through their 
pain. 

But these, of course, were only the delightful 
imaginings of art, talked over among themselves, 
and Louisiana did not hear of them. She was 
very happy and very busy. There was a gay joke 
current among them that she was a most tremen- 
dous book-worm, and that her literary knowledge 
was something for weak, ordinary mortals to quail 
before. The story went, that by some magic pro- 
cess she committed to memory the most appalling 
works half an hour after they were issued from 


HE KNEW THAT I LOVED YOU. 163 

the press, and that, secretly, Laurence stood very 
much in awe of her and was constantly afraid of 
exposing his ignorance in her presence. It was 
certainly true that she read a great deal, and 
showed a wonderful aptness and memory, and 
that Laurence's pride and delight in her were the 
strongest and tenderest feelings of his heart. 

Almost every summer they spent in North 
Carolina, filling their house with those of their 
friends who would most enjoy the simple quiet 
of the life they led. There were numberless pic- 
tures painted among them at such times and num- 
berless new types'’ discovered. 

‘‘ But you’d scarcely think," it was said some- 
times, that it is here that Mrs. Laurence is on 
her native heath." 

And though all the rest of the house was open, 
there was one room into which no one but 
Laurence and Louisiana ever went — a little room, 
with strange, ugly furniture in it, and bright- 
colored lithographs upon the walls. 


END. 



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THE NOVELS AND STORIES OF 

Frances Hodgson Burnett 

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, Publishers 


**We have no hesitation in saying that there is no 
living writer ( man or woman ) who has Mrs, Bumetfs 
dramatic power in telling a story.'' — N. Y. Herald 


In Connection with 

The De Willoughby Claim 

j2ino. $i»3S ttet 

M rs. BURNETT'S new novel is a literary event of the 
highest importance. From first to last one reads on 
with breathless interest of the winning of the great 
claim which was to reinstate good-natured ^^Big Tom" 
De Willoughby in his birthright. Interwoven with it is the 
story of a woman deceived by the man of whom the world 
would have least expected it, his identity being effectually con- 
cealed till the terrible revelation of the dramatic final chapters. 
The fate of the heartless fanatic who stood nearest the loving 
couple, brutal in his loyalty to his idea of the right, has a 
dramatic significance which is intensified in the light of his 
past conduct. 

As if to compensate, however, for the mother's grief, her 
child survives her ; and in this beautiful child-life Mrs. Bur- 
nett has added another charming portrait to her gallery of 
juvenile characters. How Tom De Willoughby's life was 
saved from blackness and desolation and made to overflow 
with happiness — this the reader will learn for himself. 

The tragedy of the story, intensified by the contrast of the 
fanatical New England temper with Southern chivalry and 
kindness, is not its only side. The love between a beautiful, 
romantic child and a strong man who is her protector fills the 
book with a sweetness that matches its dramatic Are. 


NOVELS BY MRS. BURNETT 


The Dawn of a Tomorrow 

Illustrated in Color by F. C. Yohn. i2mo, $i.oo net, 

“An uncommonly vivid story Boston Advortisor, 

“A touching little tale that csxrits 2i snhWr^o truths— Doiroii Froe From, 

His Grace of Osmonde 

Being the Portions of that Nobleman’s Life omitted in the Relation 
of his Lady’s Story, presented to the World of Fashion under the 
Title of “A Lady of Quality.” i2mo, $1.35 net. 

“ We have no doubt that it will be read with the same eager interest and 
grateful approval that rewarded *A Lady of Quality.' “ — New York Sun. 


A Lady of Quality 

Being a most curious, hitherto unknown history, related to Mr. 
Isaac Bickers taff, but not presented to the World of Fashion through 
the pages of The Tattler., and now for the first time written down 
by Frances Hodgson Burnett. i2mo, $1.35 net. 

“The plot is excellent, and an unflagging interest is maintained from the 
first page to the very last.”— TA# Critic. 


The One I Knew the Best of All 

A Memory of the Mind of a Child. Richly and fully illustrated by 
R. B. Birch. i2mo, handsomely bound, $1.25 net. 

MRS. KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN.— “ This ‘Memory of the Mind of a 
Child ’ has the engaging candor and transparency of all sincere autobiography, 
yet it is revealed with such exquisite delicacy and absence of self-consciousness 
that we forget that the child heroine is Mrs. Burnett in youth.” 


The Pretty Sister of Jose 

With 12 illustrations by C. S. Reinhart. i2mo, $1.00 net. 

“ This proud and self-willed little Spanish beauty, with her fierce scorn of 
all love and lovers, and her cruel coquetry, is a charming heroine, not unknown 
to us, indeed, by other names in other novels, but abundantly welcome thus 
freshly, brigtitly, and vividly individualized for us again by Mrs. Burnett. 
The story is swiftly and dramatically told with all the freedom and sureness 
of a skilful outline drawing. Perfect art was necessary to its effective telling.” 

— Boeton Advertieer. 


NOVELS BY MRS. BURNETT 


That Lass o’ Lowrie’s 

i2mo, $1.25 net. 

“ Wc know of no more powerful work from a woman’s hand in theKnglisli 
language, not even excepting the best of George Boston Transcri^, 

Haworth’s 

Illustrated. i2mo, $1.25 net. 

“A product of genius of a very high order.” — Now York Evening Post. 
One of the few great American novels.” — Hartford Courant. 

Through One Administration 

i2mo, $1.35 net. 

“ As a study of Washington life, dealing largely with what might be called 
social politics, it is certainly a success. As a society novel it is indeed quite 
perfect. Critic. 

Louisiana 

i2mo, $1.25 net. 

“ A delightful little story, original and piquant in design, and carried out 
with great artistic skill.” — Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. 

A Fair Barbarian 

Cloth, $1.25 net. 

“ If a more amusing or clever novelette than ‘A Fair Barbarian’ has ever 
been given to the American public, we fail to recall W'— Pittsburgh Telegraph, 

Surly Tim, and Other Stories 

I2m0;i $1.25 net. 

“ Uncommonly vigorous and truthful stories of human nature.” 

— Chicago Tribune, 

Vagabondia: A Love Story 

i2mo, cloth, $1.25 net. 

“One of the sweetest love stories ever written.” — Brooklyn Eagle. 

“A charming love story in Mrs. Burnett’s brightest and most winning 
style.” — New York Herald. 

Earlier Stories 

First Series — Comprising Theo, MissCrespigny, and Lindsay’s Luck. 
Second Series — Comprising Pretty Polly Pemberton, and Kathleen. 
Each, i2mo, $1.25 net. 

“ Each of these narratives has a distinct spirit. They are told not anly 
with true art but with deep pathos.”— Post. 


JUVENILES BY MRS. BURNETT 


A Little Princess 

Being the Whole Story of Sara Crewe, now told for the First Time. 
Illustrated in Color. 8vo, $2.00 net. 

“So here is the whole story of Sara Crewe better than it was at first, 
because there is more of it, with a dozen beautiful colored pictures.” 

— Th4 Outlook. 

Two Little Pilgrims’ Progress 

A Story of the City Beautiful. With many illustrations by R. B. 
Birch. i2mo, $1.20 net. 

“ The day we first read it will stand ever after among the red-letter days 
of life. It is a story to be marked with a white stone, a strong, sweet, true 
book, touching the high-water mark of excellence.” 

— Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster. 

Little Lord Fauntleroy 

Beautifully illustrated by R. B. Birch. i2mo, $1.20 net, 

“In ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy’ we gain another charming child to add to 
our gallery of juvenile heroes and heroines ; one who teaches a great lesson 
with such truth and sweetness that we part from him with real regret.” 

— Louisa M. Alcott. 

Sara Crewe and Little Saint Elizabeth 

and Other Stories. Richly and fully illustrated by R. B. Birch. 
i2mo, $1.20 net. 

“ In creating her little gentlewoman, ‘ Sara Crewe,’ so fresh, so simple, so 
natural, so genuine, and so indomitable, Mrs. Burnett has added another 
child to English fiction.” — R. H. Stoddard. 

“ ‘ Little Saint Elizabeth ’ is one of the most winning and pathetic of Mrs. 
Burnett’s child heroines. The fairy tales which follow her history, retold 
from a lost fairy book, are quite charming.” — The Atkeneeum. 

Giovanni and the Other 

Children who have made Stories. With 9 full-page illustrations by 
R. B. Birch. i2mo, $1.20 net. 

“ Stories beautiful in tone, and style, and color.” — Kate Douglas Wiogxn. 

Piccino 

And Other Child Stories. Fully illustrated by R. B. Birch. i2mo, 
$1.20 net. 

“ The history of Piccino’s ‘ two days ’ is as delicate as one of the anemones 
that spring in the rock walls facing Piccino’s Mediterranean. . . . The 
other stories in the book have the charm of'their predecessor in material and 
manner.” — Mrs. Burton Harrison. 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 

S97-599 Fifth Avenue, New York 




